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George Washington Flowers 
Memorial Collection 


DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 


ESTABLISHED BY THE 
FAMILY OF 
COLONEL FLOWERS 








DISCUSSIONS 


OF 


Theological Questions. 


BY 


JOHN L. GIRARDEAU, D. D., LL. D., 


LaTE PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 
CoiumsiA, SoutH CAROLINA. 


EDITED BY 
Rev. GEORGE A. BLACKBURN, 


UnpD&R THE AUSPICES OF THE SyYNODs OF SouTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA, 


ALABAMA AND FLoRIDA. 


RICHMOND, VA.: 
THE PRESBYTERIAN COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION. 





COPYRIGHTED BY 
THE PRESBYTERIAN COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION, 
R. E. MAcIti, Secretary. 


1905. 


PRINTED BY 
Wuitrert & SHEPPERSON, 


Ricumonn, Va. 


THE COMMITTEE OF THE SYNODS. 


Rev. W. T. Hart, D. D., Chairman, South Carolina. 
Rev. Tuos. P. Hay, Business Manager, Florida. 
Rev. J. T. PLunxet, D. D., Georgia. 

Rev. DonaLtp McQueen, Alabama. 

Ruling Elder W. C. Srstry, Georyia. 





EDITOR’S PREFACE. 





In the Minutes of the Alumni Association of the 
Columbia Theological Seminary of 1881 the following 


record is found: 


“Upon the reassembling of the Association, the Rev. Dr. Palmer 
presented, with some remarks in regard to it, the following paper, 
which was unanimously adopted by a rising vote: “The Alumni 
of the Seminary, associated to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary 
of their Alma Mater, respectfully and earnestly suggest to their 
beloved brother, the Rev. J. L. Girardeau, whether he can render 
any service to the Southern Church more important than to take 
up and complete the system of theology begun by the late and 
lamented Dr. Thornwell, and arrested by his death; giving to the 
world a complete work issuing from this Seminary, and the lasting 
estimony borne by it to the immutable truth of God.’ ” 


Dr. Girardeau answered this call by giving the church 
The Will in its Theological Relations, Calvinism and 
Evangelical Arminianism, Discussions of Philosophical 
Questions, and these Discussions of Theological Ques- 
tions. This is probably not exactly what the Association 
desired. They doubtless had in mind a Columbia text- 
book on theology, similar to those prepared by Dr. 
Hodge, of Princeton, and by Dr. Dabney, of Union. 
Dr. Girardeau had the qualifications necessary to com- 
plete such a work, but instead of this, the course he 


marked out for himself was only to write on such sub- 


vi EpitTor’s PREerace. 


jects as in his judgment had not been satisfactorily 
treated by any other author whose writings were acces- 
sible to the church. This gives his readers assurance 
that, however much they may have read upon the sub- 
jects treated, they will find in his discussions something 
fresh, something that no one else has said, and some- 
thing that he thought worth saying. 

This volume was not arranged for the press by the 
author; he probably would have inserted the discussion, 
“The Federal Theology: its Import and its Regulative 
Influence,” found in the Semi-Centennial of the Co- 
lumbia Theological Seminary, which is one of his finest 
discussions; and would probably have left out, as not 
logically belonging to this volume, the “Appendix to 
the Discussion of Romanism.” The first of these is 
already in permanent form; the second, although it is 
a digression, is so interesting, from more than one point 
of view, that the reader will dcubtless justify its inser- 
tion. His discussion of the Christo-centric principle of 
theology, published in the Presbyterian Quarterly of 
January, 1892, would have been included in this volume 
but for the fact that it would have added too much to 
its size. 

If it shall please the Lord to open the way for the 
publication of another volume, it will consist of sermons 
and addresses. Grorcr A. Bracksurn. 


Cotvssia, 8. C. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


PaGs, 

BD MEOR RM MACH tarts vem ecae tk + yaks ro oe hn Vv 

ir DEIN ECION OF “PHROLOGY, (occu. .sc 0b. ee ees 1 

THE DISTRIBUTION oR DivIsIoN oF THEOLOGY, ..... 45 
THE ULTIMATE Source, RULE AND JupGE oF THE- 

OLOGY: 
RATIONALISM : 

HACER ODUCIIGNGS skis we sats Se ON %3 

PON PEWS Totes ual So cca/iacetiee sc tate ae ae 76 

ENS TUMORS, og peeks i bz eho.) cies Saw: 84 

(UE TSA AR eae, gen eee eS | are 96 

TECHNICAL RATIONALISM, .............. 108 

i STSUDT SS a  P PS SEE GR AD Sie Sl Oe 125 

PS OMCOUNTISME Ch on sa sitemact, unt ctenha 5 pensions ny 


APPENDIX TO THE Discussion or RoMANISM, 228 


PROTESTANTISM : 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES, .... 273 
THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES, ..... 385 
Ure EERSON OF AGHRIST, |. ..cvc thc aswl. ca. 393 


THe Doctrine oF ADOPTION, 








7 = | 















DISCUSSIONS 


oF 


THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


THE DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY. 


T is proposed in these remarks to consider the 

question of the Definition of Theology. 

I. I can see no sufficient reason to reject the opinion of , 
those who define theology to be the Science of Religion. 
It must be confessed that there are difficulties which 
appear to oppose any attempt to define it, and that 
plausible objections have been rendered to this par- 
ticular mode of defining it. It is, therefore, requisite 
to explain and vindicate the definition which has just 
been offered. 

The generic concept, it is needless to observe, under / 
which any science must be reduced is knowledge. All 
science is knowledge, but, at the same time, all know- 
ledge is not science. Everything depends upon the 
mode in which knowledge has been acquired, and the 
form in which it is possessed by the mind. The modes 
in which it may have been attained will stamp it with 
the respective denominations of spontaneous or unreflec- 
tive, voluntary or reflective, and didactically communt- 
cated, knowledge. The first sort is the necessary result 


2 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


of the contact of perception, internal and external, with 
the phenomena of experience; the second is the product 
of the faculties of comparison energizing upon the 
empirical materials furnished by consciousness — the 
complement of internal and external perception; the 
third is the effect of faith relying upon the communics- 
tions of a witness or a teacher. If the subject of 
knowledge remains content with the first and third of 
the kinds which have been enumerated; if he simply 
retains in memory the facts acquired by the spontaneous 
activity of consciousness, or by a believing absorption of 
those delivered by testimony and teaching, he stops short 
of science. He may possess a great mass of truth, which 
becomes operative practically through the necessary 
procedure of the law of association acting upon the 
conserved stores of the memory by suggestion or remin- 
iscence; and this may be all that is requisite to meet 
the ordinary demands of life and conduct. This body 
of information may also be gathered up into certain 
rules of action, which operate both in the material and 
moral sphere. But these practical standards of action 
have themselves been the result of a spontaneous, and 
not of a voluntary exercise of the faculties. One cannot, 
in the normal state of the mental powers, help reaching 
them. Some reflection may be involved, but it is such 
as the mind, in accordance with the necessary laws of 
its activity, is compelled to institute. There is no such 
reflection as is determined by a free election of the will, 
involving analysis into causes, generalization into laws, 
and a systematic collection of parts into one harmonious 
whole, controlled by pervading principles and contem- 


Tue Derinition or THEOLOGY. 3 


plating common ends. There is in this no science. It 
is only when voluntary reflection takes place that science 
begins. It is the result of the discursive or reasoning 
faculty comparing concepts with concepts, in the quest 
of a unity which will reduce the crude mass of facts 
into the coherence of a system. The raw materials are 
conceived under the relations of thought. These ma- 
terials are furnished by the perceiving and believing 
powers, either immediately or by good and necessary 
deduction from the data immediately given, but it is 
the thinking faculty which arranges them into order. 
It analyzes their contents when existing in combination 
with each other, discovers ultimate, because unresolv- 
able, facts, detects qualities common to different indi- 
viduals — qualities which ground their resemblance to 
each other — employs these ultimate facts and common 
qualities as bases of classification, seeks a principle 
which brings classes of facts into unity, and in this way 
strives to secure a systematic arrangement of the whole. 
This systematized knowledge is science, the perfection 
of which will depend upon the accuracy of the process 
by which it has been reached. 

The question whether theology is a science will, then, 
be determined by the answer to the question whether ‘ 
it is properly entitled to the designation of systematized 
knowledge. In the broadest sense of the term, theology 
has for the object-matter about which it is concerned 
religious truths; that is to say, truths which are intrin- / 
sically, in their very nature, religious, or natural facts, 
either mental or material, which, contemplated in their 
relations, take on a religious type. That theology should 


=< 


= 


4 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


be viewed in this broad aspect would seem to be required 
by the usages of language, which it were idle to correct. 
We habitually speak of a Pagan, a Mohammedan, a 
Romanist and a Protestant theology. They all come 
under the generic denomination of theology. The ques- 
tion, in the first instance, is not whether this system or 
that be a true theology; not whether its determination 
and arrangement of religious truths be correct; but 
whether the attempt is made to reduce any religious 
truths to a system. If the definition of theology should 
be rigidly confined to the truth or falsity of its matter, 
no definition could be reached. Every special denomi- 
nation, even of evangelical Protestantism, would have 
its own peculiar definition. It is obvious that we must 
start with a distinction between theology in the general 
and a true theology in particular. Wherever facts pro- 
fessedly religious constitute the object-matter about 
which the organ of reflection is employed, a professed 
theology may be the result: the possibility of a science 
claiming to be a science of religion cannot be refused. 
Now, unless it can be shown that there is something in 
the very nature of religious facts which renders them 
incapable of being marshalled by the reflective faculty 
into systematic form, it must be conceded that they may 
be reduced to scientific arrangement. As this cannot be 
shown, the possibility of a science of religion is 
granted. 

But while this is so, while to the eye of philosophical 
reason, looking broadly upon the whole case, a theology 
may exist wherever facts of a religious complexion may 
be collected into systematic shape, still limitations upon 


Tuer DerrrnitTion oF THEOLOGY. 5 


the universal scope of the definition under consideration 
are absolutely necessary. To a just rational conception 
there may be a Pagan and a Mohammedan theology; 
but what value can they have, other than one of a specu- 
lative or historical character, to a Christian? Did he 
admit the existence of a universal religion characterized 
by the possession of certain generic and fundamental 
principles, theoretically true, however falsely applied 
they may be in specific religious systems, and that of 
this universal scheme the Christian religion is, like 
Paganism and Mohammedanism, one of its subordinate 
elements, having more truth than they, but yet codrdi- 
nate with them as species under a genus, the wide defi- 
nition which has been given might be considered as havy- 
ing practical value. But, on the contrary, the Christian 
religion refuses to align itself in this column; it utterly 
rejects the hypothesis that it is merely a specific instance 
of a generic religion, and absolutely claims for itself the 
competency and the right to be the only religion of the 
race. The professions of nominal religions, besides 
itself, to be religions at all, in any true and proper 
sense, it pronounces to be false. It arrogates to itself 


the high and exclusive prerogative of being the only’ 


true kind of religion, both generically and specifically. 
This claim is, of course, resisted by the maintainers 
of every other religion than the Christian. It is chal- 
lenged as a mere assumption, the verification of which 
on rational grounds is demanded. The requirement can- 
not be dismissed with contempt. It must be admitted 
that reason has an office to discharge with reference to 
the great question whether a religion, professing to be 


6 Discussions or THEoLoaicat QuEsTIons. 


the only authoritative expression of God’s will touching 
the highest interests and duties of mankind, bears the 
unimpeachable credentials of divine origination. This 
is clear from the fact that there are rival claimants of 
this high distinction. There has been in the past, and 
there is now, a battle of religions on the arena of the 
world. Each arrogates to itself the honor of being the 
supreme religion. This conflict must, in the first in- 
stance, from the very nature of the case, be decided at 
the bar of reason. In the first instance, I say, for when 
the question has been settled by reason, and one of the 
contending systems has been proved to be from God, 
the judicial posture of reason gives way to the attitude 
of the disciple and the servant. Whether God speaks is 
one question; whether we ought to obey when we know 
that he speaks is another. 

The position that reason is competent to perform this 


, preliminary function of deciding between the claims of 


conflicting religions must also be further qualified. 
There must be a confession of dependence upon God 


‘ and prayer for his guidance, or the requisite conditions 


for settling the question are not fully met. He who 
pretends to an ability to reach a conclusion, without the 
aid of divine illumination, vitiates the procedure of 
reason itself and blocks its path to a successful deter- 
mination of the solemn inquiry. 

On the supposition that one is a Christian, not only 
by birth, or education, or by a supernatural influence 
effecting his conversion, but upon grounds of reason re- 
flectively apprehended, it is presumed that this con- 
troversy between rival religions has been conclusively 


Tur DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY. 4 


settled. The question cannot in this place be handled 
at length. It belongs specially to Apologetics. Let it 
suffice that some of the prominent reasons be briefly indi-» 
eated which justify the claim of the Christian religion 
to be the only competent religion of the race. 


In the first place, it alone delivers any satisfactory’ ‘ 


doctrine in regard to the being and nature of God. The 
religions of Paganism are but travesties of his being. 
So far as they are polytheistic, they violate the demand 
of reason for the unity of a fundamental being as the 
first, efficient cause of all beings, whose relation to‘them 
brings them into the totality of one harmonious whole. 

So far as they tend to the assertion of one ultimate 
being, they contravene the requirements of reason by 
denying to him personality. They are all inferior, 
reason being the judge, to the Mohammedan religion. 
Tt confutes them to the extent of its affirming the unity 
and personality of God. That they are, contemplated 
from a rational point of view, far below the doctrine of” 
the Christian religion in respect to the character of God, 

is so obvious that the point need not be pressed. The 
comparison remaining between the Mohammedan and 
the Christian religions, it may be safely affirmed that 
the former is, upon grounds of reason, the less satis- 
factory in regard to the vital subject of God’s being. 

The vaunted monotheism, which is its cardinal prin- 
ciple, is an insufficient account of the true God. Both 
religions agree in asserting the unity of the divine 
essence. But is this all that is necessary? The Chris- 
tian religion denies.. It goes further and maintains a 
plurality of persons. The Mohammedan holds to one 


8 Discussions oF THEOLo@IcaL QuESTIONs. 


_ person as well as one essence. The substance and the 
‘ personality of God coincide. The Christian contends 
that there is one substance, but three persons. It may 
, be asked, How can human reason come in as a factor 
in deciding this question? What can it say in regard 
to the transcendent idea of a trinity of persons in the 
Godhead? And it must be confessed that these ques- 
tions are pertinent, as the inquiry here is in relation 
to the power of reason, unaided by supernatural, direct 
revelation. I reply that all the deductions of reason 
upon such a subject can only amount to presumptions; 
‘ but the question about which we are engaged is one in 
which probability, however faint, exercises a determin- 
ing influence. 
There are two ways, entirely different from each 
( other, in which the human reason is obliged to appre- 
/ hend God. In the first it denies, in the second it affirms, 
an analogy as subsisting between him and ourselves. 
Proceeding in accordance with a constitutional faith— 
, tor faith is an element of reason—it apprehends God 
as infinite, and as, therefore, out of all analogy to the 
finite creature. But were this the whole of our know- 
ledge of him, no practical value would attach to it. We 
/are compelled also to hold that there is, in other respects, 
a real likeness between our make and his own blessed 
nature. We are entitled to infer, from our possession 
. of intelligence, affections and will, for example, that 
these attributes belong to him, only in an infinitely 
higher degree. In like manner we are justified, from - 
. the fact that we are persons, in apprehending him as a 
person. Otherwise we could not love him, could not 


Tur DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY. 9 


obey him, could not worship him, could hold no com- 
munion with him—in a word, religion would be im- 
possible. This the Mohammedan admits. But we are 
conscious of personality chiefly —I do not here raise ’ 
the question whether also exclusively — by virtue of our 
relations to other persons than ourselves. This is the 
foundation of human fellowship and society. But if 
in this regard there is an analogy between God and 
ourselves, we must take one or other of two grounds: 
either that the personal fellowship of God is limited to 
finite creatures, or that it is not. If the former, we are 
confronted by two difficulties: first, there was, on the 
supposition a period in his eternal existence when, as : 
creatures were not in existence, he had no personal com- 
munion with others, and underwent a process of becom- 
ing, of development, when their czeation furnished the 
condition of that fellowship; and, secondly, his com- 
munion with finite beings would be, of necessity, infi-” 
nitely inadequate to satisfy the demands of his nature. 
Both of these difficulties are insuperable, and we turn 
to the other alternative, namely, that the personal fel- ° 
lowship of God is not limited to finite beings. But if 
so, we are shut up to the belief that there is a personal 
communion in the Godhead itself. I do not deny the 
possibility of conceiving that, as formally we may be- 
come objects to ourselves, so God, were he simply uni- 
personal, might contemplate himself as an object infi- 
nitely adequate to his intelligence and regard. But in 
that case the analogy, now presupposed, between him 
and us would not be realized. We are constrained by 
our own constitution to believe that there is with God’ 


~< 


s 


10 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QvEsTIoNs. 


as with us communion of person with person. character- 
ized, as persons, by otherness each to each. And this 
rational belief is attended with probability in conse- 
/ quence of the consideration, that in such a communion 
‘an infinite object would meet the requirements of an 
infinite subject, and there would be an infinite reci- 
procity of fellowship between them. [Reason herself 
perceives the probable truth of the view intimated by 
Bacon and others, that had God remained in the soli- 
tude of his own being, without having brought any 
‘ intelligent creature into existence, he would have en- 
joyed a perfect society in the personal relations of the 
Godhead; and that this ineffable communion was the 
archetype of all the social fellowship existing among the 
creatures. 
In urging this view it is not intended to say that 
| reason would conduct us, upon grounds even of proba- 
bility, to the doctrine of the Trinity; all that it could 
intimate would be the fact of a diversity of persons, 
perhaps not more than a duality. But to that extent 
it goes farther than the monotheistic doctrine of uni- 
personality, and falls in with the revelation of a trine 
personality by the Christian religion. Nor is it de- 
signed to say that, previously to the revelation of a 
diversity of persons in the Godhead, supernaturally 
given, reason would have suggested the fact. Upon 
that question it may be best not to dogmatize. It is fair 
to raise the inquiry whether the antithesis, affirmed by 
consciousness, of subject and object, not formally 
merely, but also really, and the social relations among 
men grounded in a plurality of persons, would not avail 


Tur DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY. 11 


to furnish a rational suggestion of personal diversity 
in the Godhead. The question, however, is unsuscep- 
tible of definite settlement, because of the rational pro- 
bability that man has never existed without some direct 
revelation of God’s being and nature, and it would be 
almost impossible to determine how far the native pro- 
cesses of reason had been uninfluenced by the traditional 
remains of that revelation. ‘But, the doctrine having 
been clearly republished in the Scriptures, reason de- y 
cides that it falls in with her own profound intima- 
tions — profounder than the shallow ratiocinations of 
the Socinian and Unitarian ever perceived. 

Further, the doctrine of a personal diversity in the > 
Godhead in the specific form of a Trinity is admitted | 
to be peculiar to the Christian religion. Now this fact 
has to be accounted for upon the principle of cause and , 
effect, and reason is competent to employ a disjunctive 
argument in regard to its origin. Either, it is the 
product of the human intelligence, or it is a revelation “ 
from God. The former it could not be, for the reason 
that, while the intelligence of man might infer, from 
the consciousness of the duality of self and not-self, some ’ 
distinction in the Godhead corresponding to it, there 
confessedly is no possible inference from that fact in 
favor of a divine tri-personality. It cannot be a mere 
vagary of the human fancy. The supposition is extrava- 
gant. It is inconceivable that a religion so eminently 
characterized by common sense should have as an inte- 
gral element, regulative and controlling, a mere crotchet 
of. the brain, or that the most exalted intelligences and 
the purest moralists should have been deceived in re 


12 Discusstons or TuroL.octoaL QuEsTIONs. 


garding an empty dream as lying at the foundation of 
their virtues and their hopes. It is the faith of philoso- 
phers and saints, not of madmen and fanaties. 
%, In the second place, the Christian religion alone de- 
‘livers any satisfactory doctrine in regard to the physical 
government of God, as the creator and providential pre- 
server and governor of the world. 
is In the third place, it alone furnishes satisfactory 
re “teaching in relation to the moral government of God: 
it alone affords a complete statement of a moral law, 
as a formal, objective code, and a thorough-going ex- 
position of that law in its application to human char- 
acter and life. There is in no other religion any ana- 
logue to the Ten Commandments, or to the Sermon on 
the Mount, or to the comprehensive summary of moral 
law given by Christ in his grand and unique declaration, 
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with al! thy mind, and with 
all thy strength; and thy neighbor as thyself.” 
» , In the fourth place, it alone gives any competent ac- 
count of the origin and of the revolutionary and disas- 
trous effects of sin. All other religions, when they speak 
at all, do but babble on this awful and transcendently 
important subject. 

In the fifth place, it alone pretends to utter any doc- 
trine suitable to the exigencies of a sinner’s case, touch- 
ing redemption from the guilt, the stain and the do- 
minion of sin. Mediation, incarnation, reconciliation 
between God and man, accomplished by the vicarious 
atonement of One who was God and man in one Person, 
are topics of immeasurable interest, with reference to 


te Tur DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY. 13 


which it alone emits a single spark of rational explana- 
tion; while justification, adoption, sanctification, holi- 
ness, are terms peculiar to and distinctive of itself, 
which suggest the impassable gulf yawning between it 
and all other religions. Its soteriology, by itself, is 
sufficient to stamp it as the only religious scheme 
adapted to the universal wants of the race. 

In the sixth place, it alone affirms the unity of the 
race, includes all its tribes in one great brotherhood, de- 
rived from a common relation to one personal God and 
Father, and provides for one society suited to embrace 
in tenderest communion, cemented by the bond of union 
to one Mediator and Saviour, all the divergent sections 
of the human family. 

In the seventh place, it alone throws any satisfying , 
light upon the future destiny of the body and of the 
soul. No other religion approaches any tolerable solu- 
tion of the absorbing problems of death and immor- 
tality. 

Although, then, the broad definition, Theology is the 
science of religion, is upon logical grounds justifiable in , 
the general, it is for all practical purposes inoperative 
and nugatory. It is not a working definition. It pos- 
sesses only a theoretical value. We are warranted in 
narrowing it. Since among the religions of mankind 
only one is entitled to be considered as true, we may 
define theology as the science of true religion—meaning 
the Christian religion. Proceeding by the rule, common 
to all sciences, of defining by the object-matter, theology / 
would then be a systematic arrangement of the doctrinal 
statements, the historical events, the prophecies, pre- 


nS 


< 


14 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QUESTIONS. 


cepts, promises, threatenings — in fine, the whole matter 
of the true, or Christian, religion. 

But the process of limitation cannot stop here. It 
would be arrested at this point, did all the adherents 
of the Christian religion profess to hold a common 
theology. This, however, is very far from being the 


_ ease. Nominal Christians are not at one in regard 
" either to the source or the object-matter of theology, and 


they disagree also about its rule and its ultimate judge. 
This induces definitions in accordance with the respec- 
tive views which are maintained upon these important 
points. 

The Orthodox or Evangelical Protestant affirms the 


‘ sacred Scriptures to be the only source, and their con- 


tents to be the object-matter, of theology. To him 
religion, objectively considered, is precisely the contents 
of the Bible, so far as they reveal a rule of faith and 
practice, and the final judge deciding all controversies 
in religion is the Holy Ghost speaking in the Scriptures. 
The Rationalistic Protestant holds that Reason is the 
ultimate source of theology, and while he acknowledges 
that the contents of the Bible enter partly into its object- 
matter, also contends that the deliverances of reason 
constitute another part; so that to him the rule of faith 
and practice is composite, consisting of the revealed 
facts of Scripture and the principles and deductions of 
the natural reason, the final judge of religious questions 
being the human reason itself. The Mystic, so far as he 
professes to be evangelical, does not discard the Bible 


N . . . 
as to some extent being a source, or furnishing the 


object-matter of theology, but it is his peculiarity that 


Tue Derrition oF THEOLOGY. 15 


he admits an extra-scriptural addition of truth derived, 
either from protracted meditation, by which the soul is 
more and more united with and absorbed into the divine 
being, or from supernatural revelations made imme- 
diately to the mind. However much the members of the 
school to which he belongs may differ from each other 
as to certain elements of the system common to them, 
they are all reducible to the unity of a class upon the 
principle that new, original religious truth is attainable 
apart from the Scriptures. The Bible is not the only 
source of theology, its contents are not its only object- 
matter, and the final judge in religion is not the Holy 
Ghost speaking in the Scriptures. The Mystic is, con- 
sequently, a rationalist; for, like him, rejecting the 
Bible as an ultimate authority in religion, he is com- 
pelled to rely upon reason both for the communication 
of much of the matter of his theology and for its 
reflective construction into a system. His claim to the 
contrary, founded upon the allegation of immediate 
revelations made by the Spirit, and the guidance of the 
Spirit in systematizing them, amounts to nothing, unless 
he can furnish in support of that claim a body of 
miraculous proof equivalent to that which sustains the 
Bible as a professed, supernatural revelation, and an 
objective promise, similar to that contained in the Serip- 
tures, of the Spirit’s direction in the quest of truth. 
The Romanist postulates the authority of the church — 
that is, the Roman Catholic Church — as the cause of 
theology. He admits, it is true, that the Scriptures are 
in part its source, but he adds to them Tradition, a body 
of communications professed to have been originally 


16 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


made in oral form by the apostles, and handed down, 
under the custody of the church, from age to age. This 
composite rule of faith and practice, consisting of the 
Scriptures and Tradition, the Church of Rome claims 


‘ infallibly to interpret, by virtue of the gift of inspiration 


~ 


continued to her. Consequently, the authoritative de- 
cisions of the church constitute the ultimate source and 
matter, the supreme rule and judge of theology. Unless 
the claim to continued inspiration can be substantiated 
by unquestionable miracles — and it never has been — 
the ultimate, authoritative decisions of the Church of 
Rome are decisions enforced by the human reason. The 
Romanist, therefore, is, in the last analysis, a rationalist. 

Here, then, are two distinct kinds of theology; that, 
on the one hand, of the Evangelical Protestant, which 
is entirely scriptural, and those, on the other, of the 
Rationalist, the Mystic, and the Romanist, which are 
partly scriptural, but dominantly rational. The true 


/ Protestant, therefore, is entitled to define theology as 


the science of biblical religion. But since to him the 
Christian religion and the religion of the Bible are one 


,and the same, the last two definitions coincide: the 


science of the Christian religion is the science of Bible 
religion. 

Although the distinction holds between this narrower 
definition and the wider, inasmuch as every religious 
scheme cannot be expected to meet a full, systematic 
arrangement in any one theology; yet the narrowness 
of the Protestant definition is in a measure relieved by 
the consideration that as truth is not as powerfully and 
completely presented by mere didactic inculcation, as 


Tue Derinition or Tuerotoey. 17 


by the combination with it of a treatment of the con- 
trasted error, the doctrines of any religion that are 
opposed to those of the true may receive a polemical 
exhibition, which, if not thorough-going, will still be 
sufficient. It might appear that the limiting process 


should go farther, in view of the difference between the | 


doctrinal systems adopted by the denominations which 
come under the common title of Protestant. No such 


necessity exists. All Protestants profess to derive their, 


theology from the Bible alone. The Bible is its source, 
furnishes its object-matter, and constitutes its supreme 
and final rule. The differences which emerge between 
them are occasioned by their conflicting interpretations 
of its contents. They do not profess to be infallible 
interpreters of the Bible, for they lay no claim to the 
gift of inspiration. The inspiration is in the Scriptures, 
not in themselves. Hence differences arise; but, let it 
be observed, that each party vindicates its views by an 
appeal to the Bible itself. This settles the question. 
The theology of all Protestants claims the Scriptures as 
its norm. The Protestant, therefore, satisfies himself 
with no broader and no narrower definition of theology 
than this: the science of true religion — that is, of the 
Christian, or biblical, religion; or, to avoid any am- 
biguity which may arise from the use of the word 
religion, the science of religious truth contained in the 


Bible. 


In this definition, the specific difference — true reli-: 


gion — is considered objectively. It is the body of 


religious truths embraced in the Scriptures, with the’ 


good and necessary consequences derivable from them. 
2 


18 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


It is God’s external, verbal, authoritative delineation of 
the standard to which subjective religion, or the religious — 
life, ought to be conformed, and by which it is to be 
judged. The Bible is not the evolved result of the 
religious consciousness developed by the culture which 
springs from connection with higher and higher forms 
of environment. The contrary is true. The religious 
consciousness is conditioned, in its development, by con- 
tact with the objective type of religion contained in the 
Bible, a body of truth which has been increased and 
developed towards its consummate form by supernatural 
accretions made by inspiration. In a word, the Bible is 
not evolved from man, but supernaturally given by God. 
Tt is not a digest of truth effected by the reason of pious 
men reflecting upon the facts of the religious conscious- 
ness, but the divinely originated norm to which the 
religious life behooves to be adjusted — the archetype 
of which experimental religion was intended to be the 
ectype. The opposite view makes the Bible itself a 
theology having for its object-matter the facts of reli- 
gious experience. The conception is thoroughly un- 
Protestant and rationalistic. 

Let it be distinctly noticed, then, that theology is not 
_primarily and immediately concerned about the religious 
; life, subjectively contemplated, as its object-matter, but 
about the objective contents of the Seriptures. Of 
, course, also, it cannot find its source in the faets of 
religious experience. At the same time, however, it 
must, from the nature of the case, deal secondarily and 
‘mediately with internal religion and the conduct which 
expresses it. The very end of supernatural revelation 


Tue Derrrnition oF THEOLOGY. 19 


is holiness of life to the glory of God. There is an 
indestructible relation between the Bible as the standard 
of religious truth and the religious character which was 
designed to be formed in accordance with it, between 
the mould and the life which is to be adjusted to it. 


Theology, consequently, is both the theory of true _ 
religion and the application of that theory to the con- 


erete cases of religious experience. “It is,” as Dr. 
Thornwell justly remarks, “the system of doctrine in its 
logical connection and dependence, which, when spirit- 
ually discerned, produces true piety.” As a science, i 
is neither exclusively speculative nor exclusively prac- 
tical. Like every other science, it may be speculatively 
apprehended, but it would be inconsistent with the pur- 
pose of God, in furnishing the data out of which it is 
constructed, did not this speculative knowledge issue 
in practical religion. It is not a science to be academi- 
cally taught as a mere intellectual discipline, but with 


4 


the end mainly in view of enabling the preacher to bring” 


the truths of the Bible clearly, consistently and power- 
fully in contact with the mind and conscience and heart. 
It teaches both what men are to believe and what ey 
are to do. 

The knowledge, which, as a subjective habit, corres- 


ponds to theology as an objective science, may be cou- ’ 


sidered as either natural or spiritual. The cognition of 
the statements of facts, the doctrinal propositions, the 
ethical precepts contained in the Scriptures, is, in some 
degree, competent to the understanding of the natural 
man, that is, one who is not the subject of regenerating 
grace. This kind of cognitive apprehension of the con- 


20 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIONs. 


tents of the Bible conditions their spiritual and saving 
cognition. There is no reason for denying that this 
natural knowledge may, in consequence of the exercise 
of the intellectual faculties which belong to men, as men, 
correspond to the scientific arrangement of the truth 
effected by theology. This sort of knowledge, however, 
would be but a cold orthodoxy, as barren of spiritual 
result as an iceberg is of fruit. There is another kind 
‘ of knowledge which enters into the very essence of true 
piety. It is the product of the regeneration and illumi- 
‘ nation of the soul by the Holy Ghost. When by His act 
a man is born again, every one of his original powers 
participates in the change. Faith, as one of those 
“ powers, passes from its natural into a spiritual condition. 

The power to believe in order to speculative science be- 
‘comes the power to believe in order to holiness of life. 

It is now a knowledge unto salvation. The Spirit who 
produces this organ of spiritual cognition brings it into 

spiritual relation to the truth, and so illuminates it a3 
to engender a spiritual apprehension of that truth. It is, 
‘ therefore, not to be supposed that theology possesses any 
inherent power to produce true internal religion. It is 
an instrument adapted with exquisite wisdom to all the 
needs of the soul, but it is only an instrument requiring, 
in order to accomplish the end designed by it, the quick- 
ening, illuminating and applying energy of the Holy 
Spirit. The agent who makes it efficacious is the Spirit, 
and the organ through which he exerts his grace is faith. 
The spiritual knowledge, thus resulting, transmutes the 
frozen system of speculative science into a living scheme 
of saving truth. It conditions every gracious habit that 


th Tue Derinition oF THEOLOGY. 21 


adorns the soul, and begins a holy and glorious existence 
which the Scriptures denominate eternal life. “This is 
life eternal, that they might know thee the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” 

II. To the definition of theology which has, in the , 
foregoing remarks, been furnished, sundry objections © 
have been offered, which now demand attention. Let us 
first consider the most prominent of those which have 
been directed against the proximate genus — science. 

1. It is contended that the attempt to construct a 
science of theology is needless and arrogant; that if 
God had willed a scientific presentation of the truths 
embraced in the Scriptures he would himself have given \ 
it, and that to make the effort is at once to discharge a 
superfluous office, and to assert the wisdom of man abov3 
the wisdom of God. It is not difficult to answer this 
objection. 

(1) The same thing may be said in relation to the 
natural works of God. They are not phenomenally pre- 
sented to us in such a systematic arrangement as to 
render science unnecessary or presumptuous. They in- 
terpenetrate and overlap each other, and to the eye of 
casual observation seem, in part at least, to be confused 
and heterogeneous. To disentangle reflectively one 
department from another, to discover the laws peculiar 
to each, and to bring them all into harmony upon a 
fundamental principle of unity, is not only to employ 
the human faculties legitimately, but to elicit from the 
multifarious facts of the universe the most exalted 
tribute to him who is their Creator, Preserver and Gov- 
ernor. If this be true with reference to God’s natural, 


22 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


why not also in regard to his supernatural revelation ? 
It can make no difference, worth speaking of, that one 
sort of revelation is made through the medium of ma- 
_ terial things, and the other through words. They both 
', symbolize the thoughts of God, and neither is given in 
the form of a fully developed logical system.? 

This consideration is enhanced by the fact that our 
divine Maker has endowed us with intellectual faculties 
which were evidently intended to accomplish this office 
of systematizing the details of nature and revelation 
alike, faculties of metaphysical analysis and of logical 
synthesis. It may be that the education of these powers 
in the endeavor to attain systematic results is of more 
consequence to us, and brings a larger revenue of glory 
to God, than if he had in the exercise of his own infinite 
wisdom furnished to hand a natural and a theological 
science. But whether this be so or not, it is clear that, 
situated as we actually are, there is stamped upon our 
very constitution a divine call to the exercise and de- 
velopment of these powers which cannot be satisfied 
without those great generalizations of particular facts 
which put us on the path of reaching an ultimate unity. 
In other words, the human intelligence cries out for God, 
_ and in its quest for him is impelled to group phenomena 
“upon causes until it arrives at him who is the cause of 
causes, the origin and the explanation of the complex 
facts of the universe. This process of education God 


‘The sacraments teach supernaturally through material ele- 
ments. The distinction between their teaching and that of preach- 
. ing is that in the latter case instruction is given through verbal 
signs, in the former, through inarticulate. 


Tuer DEFINITION oF THEOLOGY. 23 


seems to have designed, and we obey his will when we 
pursue it to its legitimate results — results which the 
nisus and sweat of the soul undergone to attain them 
may more ingrain into our being than if they had been 
at once imposed by authority and received by absorption. 
We cannot help employing these faculties which demand 
scientific knowledge. We follow our natural make and 
constitution when we give them scope for exercise. No 
thinker can suppress their prerogative and silence their 
call. Men must and will reduce to systematic shape, in 
a greater or less degree according to their abilities*and 
circumstances, the facts with which their intelligence is 
concerned. Each man, each school, in the religious 
sphere, will have a theology of some sort. It is of the 
last importance that it should be a true theology. Some 
science there will be; it ought to be a true and not a 
false science. 

It may be urged that the materials of the Scriptures 


are possessed of a sacredness, a supernatural and spirit- | 
ual quality, which places them above the reach of tho 


merely natural powers of analysis and classification. 


But, in the first place, some of the matter contained in ‘ 


the Bible is a re-publication of natural truth, a 
re-production of the contents of natural religion, and is 
therefore level to the apprehension of the natural 
faculties. The fact that there is a natural theology is 


proof of this position. In the second place, there is, as ||. 
has already been shown, the possibility of a natural and 


merely speculative cognition of propositions conveying 
supernatural truth. Such a cognition may ground a 


speculative science of theology. In the third place, the “ 


24 Discussions or THEoLoGiIcaL QUESTIONS. 


natural faculties are, under the saving operation of the 
Holy Ghost, endowed with supernatural ability; and 
the spiritual cognition which so results conditions the 
scientific arrangement of supernatural truth. The 
organs are adapted to the contents about which they are 
concerned. The renewed powers are suited to produce a 
true theology. 

(2) The divine commands to search the Scriptures, 
and to bring every doctrine to the law and to the testi- 


‘Inony, imply a knowledge of the Bible which embraces 


its whole catholic and harmonious teaching. The adop- 
tion of any other rule lands us in the necessity of making 
the Word of God inconsistent with itself. Its parts 
must be compared with each other, and interpreted by 
the genius and spirit which pervade them all, and impart 
to them the significance and consistency of a system. 
The insulation of particular statements inevitably con- 
ducts to the position that inconsistency obtains between 


' them; and to this it must be added that an unconnected 


and disjointed interpretation of the Bible leads to 
fanaticism in belief and extravagance in life. 

It deserves also to be remarked, that the organic 
relation of the different parts or sections of the Bible 
to each other makes it necessary that the relation be 
understood in order that their fullest and truest meaning 
may be apprehended. The Old Testament and New 
Testament histories, for example, are so interlaced with 
each other that neither can be understood apart from 
its connection with the other. Only in this way can the 
central idea, the unifiying principle, of the Seriptures 
be brought out and clearly perceived. Upon any other 


Peat 
PAE 
it: 


Tue Derinition oF THEOLOGY. 25 


wher 


scheme of interpretation injustice is done to their divine 
Author. Can it be the intention of God that he should 
be misapprehended, or even inadequately apprehended, 
in the revelation of the plan which he has communicated 
in the inspired oracles? If there be such a leading and 
all-pervading idea, its influence must issue in a syste- 
matic conception of the details of Scripture, that will 
reduce to unity the separate elements which contributs 
in their place to give it expression. 

(3) If the truth in the Bible is to be taught, system 
is necessary unless the teaching be confined to the reci-_ 
tation and hearing of the mere letter of the Scriptures. 
How else could they be vindicated from the charge of 
self-inconsistency and contradiction to which they are 
so commonly subjected? Logic, in the hands of a 
teacher, is a formidable foe to vagaries and crotchets, 
and it accomplishes its results by dealing with the varied 
statements of the Scriptures as capable of systematic 
adjustment, and reducing them to the unity of science. 
Competent teaching without such a scientific arrange- 
ment would be an impossibility. 

(4) God himself has encouraged us to attempt the 
construction of a scientific theology by giving us 
specimens of it in his Word. Not only is the funda- 
mental doctrine of justification by faith logically ex-, 
pounded in the Epistle to the Romans, but it is presented 
in its relation to other doctrines of redemption. The 
connection between it and adoption, sanctification and 
glorification are so clearly set forth that the office of the 
theologian in regard to those great truths as parts of a 
scheme of salvation is to a considerable extent antici- 


< 


26 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


pated. A system of theology is in great measure 
furnished to hand in that one epistle. What hinders 
the theologian from adding the inspired exposition of 
the priestly functions of Christ in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, and from incorporating the less elaborate, but 
clear and instructive deliverances of doctrine in the 
other epistles, as, for instance, that in regard to election 
in Ephesians, that touching the resurrection of the dead 
in First Corinthians, and that concerning the immediate 
passage at death of the soul of the believer to heavenly 
glory? What hinders him from introducing the teach- 
ing of the epistles as to the second coming of Christ, and 
the nature, offices and functions of the church? And 
then what hinders him from linking these didactic 
expositions of doctrine with the great facts of the gospel 
histories and the discourses of Jesus, so as to form one 
coherent and harmonious system of divine truth? He 
must do it, unless he be untrue to his own intelligence 
and to the Word of God itself. God is one, and his 
Word, like him, is one. To seek the scientifie reduction 
of the truths of the Bible, to seek it in an humble and 
reverent spirit in dependence upon the illumination of 
the Holy Ghost, is not to attempt a needless and arrogant 
task, but to follow God’s example, and to render the 
honor which is due both to his Word and to himself. 

2. The impossibility of constructing a science of the- 


“ ology is argued from the transcendant nature of the 


contents of divine revelation. It deals with the Infinite, 
and, from the necessity of the case, finite faculties 
cannot reduce its contents to a system. The infinite is 
indefinable. As this is the essence of revelation, how 


Tue Derrition oF THEOLOGY. 27 


can its matter be subjected to the defining processes of 
the logical understanding? This objection presents 
grave difficulties, and therefore merits careful considera- 
tion. 


(1) All sciences, even the exact, begin with they 


indemonstrable. They accept their fundamental prin- 


ciples. The essence of the soul is indefinable. We » 


cannot tell how it exists. Metaphysics begins with this 
transcendant datum. Is a science of metaphysics, there- 


fore, impossible? So with Law. Its postulate is per- 


sonality. Hence personal rights and wrongs. But 
personality is an original belief which is indefinable. 
Ts, then, a science of law impossible? So also with 
Medicine. It begins with the assumption of life; and 
yet no secret behind the veil of Isis was more impene- 
trable than the nature of life. Is a science of medicine, 
therefore, impossible? So with the physical sciences, 
proceeding as they do upon the assumption of material 
substance. It does not destroy the force of this analogi- 


cal argument to say that the infinite is an element, 


peculiar to theology, and that there is no measure of 
communication between it and the finite. The infinite 
is no more incomprehensible, no more indemonstrable, 
than the essence of the soul, than life, than the substance 
of matter. It is, in itself, immeasurably different from 
them conceived as finite, but it is not different from 
tlem in relation to our thought-knowledge. We no more 
comprehend them than we do the essence of God. 


(2) The infinite is not only apprehensible by natural , | 


faith elicited by the conditions of experience; it is also 
a datum of supernatural revelation. It is furnished to 


28 Discussions or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


our faith. If the Scriptures have been proved, upon 
competent grounds, to be a revelation from God, we are 
bound to accept their statements. Theology begins, 
therefore, with an element indemonstrable by the dis- 


cursive faculty, but an element which cannot be refused. 


Tt has as much right to consider it fundamental, as have 
other sciences to regard in the same light the principia 
which they accept. 

Let it be observed, that this supernatural revelation 
of the infinite falls in with, and, at the same time, 
confirms, the presupposition of the infinite existing as 
a faith-judgment developed out of a fundamental law 
of belief by the conditions of a thought-experience. The 
apprehension of the infinite is not created by the Scrip- 


, tures. That apprehension is the result of the legitimate 


progress of our natural faculties. But were there any 
doubt concerning the validity of this natural procedure, 
it is removed by the direct corroboration of Scrip- 
ture. 

(3) The only way by which we arrive at the apprehen- 
sion of an infinite God and his infinite perfections is not 
alone the operation of the thinking faculty. There has 
been too common an acquiescence on the part of theo- 
logians in the judgment of the Pseudo-Dionysius, that 


' we attain to that knowledge by the three-fold way of 


causation, of negation, and of eminence. By the first 


_we reach God as the cause of all things; by the second 


we think away all limitation from his perfections and 
from himself; by the third we strive in thought to exalt 
“the concept” of God and his attributes to the very 
highest possible degree. 


Tue DEFINITION oF THEOLOGY. 29 


But, in the first place, we begin this process, con- 
fessedly, by appealing to a law which is not furnished - 
by the thinking faculty: thought borrows, or rather 
steals, it from faith. The fundamental law of causality 
is one of belief; and, when developed upon empirical 
conditions, it is not a concept, but a faith-judgment. 

In the second place, the attributes of God are not; 
given by the thinking faculty. Take that of power, for 
example, and it is selected because it is primarily that 
attribute about which the inferences enforced by the 
law of causality are concerned. We cannot think power; » 
it is not, strictly speaking, a concept. Conception takes 
percepts — the data of perception, and representations, 
whether pictorial images or not — the data of the imagi- 
nation, and elaborate them under the relations of 
thought; that is to say, they are analyzed, compared 
and classified. The representative faculty, the basis 
of thinking, cannot transcend the original materials 
furnished in consciousness; and consciousness is here’ 
used as convertible with immediate knowledge, the 
complement of internal and external perception. The 
representative faculty creates no new intuitions. There 
are two respects in which it discharges functions not 
competent to consciousness (or perception). First, the. 
imagination can combine into new wholes the original 
data of perception; secondly, it can imagine objects, not 
actually perceived, which are like those which are, or 
have been, perceived. For instance, we can perceive 
only a part, vast though it be, of the sidereal systems. 
But we can imagine other parts, like that perceived, 
which lie beyond the reach of the telescope. In this 


30 = Drscusstons or THEronocicaL Questions. 


imagining of unperceived objects, however, we are 
regulated by the materials already given by perception. 
We can create no new single object wholly unlike those 
which we previously perceived. We may image new 
combinations, but not new objects to be combined. Now 
\the thinking faculty deals with the stuff thus furnished 
by the presentative and the representative. It ean 
originate no new element — no element which did not 
previously originate in the action of those powers. It 
will searcely be denied that we have no consciousness 
of power; that is, that we do not perceive it. We are 
, conscious of the volition to exercise it, and of its effects 
when exercised; but we believe in its existence. If we 
perceived it, in itself, we could describe it as itself 
phenomenally known. It would be phenomenal. But 
manifestly it is not phenomenal. It does not itself 
appear. We cannot, therefore, describe it. It is not a 
direct datum of consciousness. The second way indi- 
cated by the Pseudo-Areopagite — that of thinking 
‘away limitations from divine attributes — is, conse 
quently, not one belonging exclusively to thought. We 
de not perceive, or imagine, or conceive the divine attri- 
butes themselves. We believe that they exist. There 
are thought-processes, springing from consciousness, 
‘which condition the special exercise of faith, but they 
are not faith-judgments. 
In the third place, the endeavor, by way of eminence, 
' to heighten the concepts of finite perfections — if there 
even were, strictly speaking, such concepts —to the 
utmost possible degree could not conduct us to the in- 
finite. Pile Pelion upon Ossa, and we cannot reach 


Tue Derrition oF THEOLOGY. 31 


heaven; pile finite upon finite, and we cannot reach the 
infinite. 

If, therefore, the way of attaining to the knowledge 
ot God as infinite be one in which the thinking faculty 
alone is supposed to operate, the process is defectively 
represented, and the result impossible. 


But while this is true of the sort of knowledge com-_ 
petent to thought, it is not true of all our knowledge. 


The most significant and valuable knowledge we possess 
is due to faith. The knowledge of our souls, of the 


substance of matter, of occult forces, of immortality, of 


God, is furnished by faith. We cannot think them; 


~ 


consequently, we can have no thought-knowledge of ’ 


them; but we can believe them, and therefore can have 
a faith-knowledge of them. Faith is as really a function 
of intelligence as is thought. Now, when the original 
laws of belief which precede experience are elicited from 


latency beneath consciousness by experience, they ’ 


express themselves in special judgments as to those 
things which transcend perception and imagination, and 


consequently transcend thought. It is in this way, be_ 
it reverently spoken, the knowledge of the infinite God 


is attained. We think his finite manifestations, and 
that thought-knowledge conditions and occasions the 
eliciting into formal expression of the original law of 
belief adapting us to apprehend him as infinite, and 
gives rise to the special faith-judgment that he exists 
as infinite. This is very different from a negative con- 
cept. It is not that thought, in the endeavor to frame 
a concept of God, projects its attempt towards such a 
concept as far as it possibly can, and then denies all 


32 Discussions or THEoLoatcaL Questions. 


limitation upon it. It is common to say this, but the 
language, it strikes me, is delusive. Thought can go no 


’ further than the highest concept of the finite which it 


has reached. Thus far it is entitled to make a positive 
affirmation. To say that it is able to go further, and, by 
what is called a negative protest, deny all limitation, is 
the same as to say that it may positively affirm the 
absence of all limitation, which would, again, be tanta- 
mount to the assertion that it is competent positively to 
affirm the infinite. To do that would be to comprehend 
the infinite; for what we can think, what we can con- 
ceive, we can comprehend. This is out of the question. 


God is confessed by all but extreme Absolutists to be 


incomprehensible. All theology worth the name utters 
the confession. Who by searching can find him out? 
The thinking faculty, then, in its most exalted concept 


stops at the finite. It is reserved to faith to furnish a 


" positive affirmation of the Infinite One. 


The question may here be raised, How do we become 


* possessed of the knowledge of our fundamental beliefs ? 


They are at first implicitly involved in laws, tendencies, 
aptitudes, which, as before observed, lie beneath con- 
sciousness, until they are brought out and developed by 
experience — that is, by the actual consciousness of 
phenomenal facts in the concrete. When thus elicited 


‘they appear in consciousness in the form of beliefs. 


These beliefs may be properly characterized as special 


' faith-judgments. They are not inferred from the data 


of consciousness: they are themselves data of conscious- 
ness. Whether we are conscious of the laws in which 
they originate and by which they are enforced, or 


Tue Derrition oF THEOLOGY. 33 


whether these laws are immediately inferred from the 
beliefs of which we certainly are conscious, is a question 
- which will not now be discussed ; but what is emphasized 
is, that these beliefs must not be confounded with their 
contents — with the occult things believed. For exam- 
ple, we must not confound our belief in cause with’ 
eause itself, our belief in substance with substance itself, 
our belief in the infinite with the infinite itself; just 
as we must not confound our belief in space with space 
itself, or our belief in duration with duration itself. 
The former — the beliefs — we are conscious of ; of the 
latter — the things believed — we are not. The former » 
are immediately, the latter, mediately, known. The 

former are phenomenally present, now and here; the 

latter are not. We are conscious of the beliefs; we 

immediately infer cause, substance, ete. This important 

distinction might be abundantly illustrated. 

It may be said that as, in being conscious of the per- 
ceiving act, we are conscious of the thing perceived, it 
would follow that, in being conscious of the believing ' 
act, we are conscious of the thing believed, and hence 
would be conscious of cause, substance, space, duration 
and God. This is a profound mistake. The statement , 
of the first member of the comparison is erroneous. We 
are not conscious of the perceiving act and the thing: 
perceived. The perceiving act is itself consciousness ; 
the thing perceived is the percept directly apprehended” 
by consciousness. The reason is plain. The object 
perceived is now and here present. We immediately 
know it — that is, we are conscious of it; for conscious-! 
ness and zometiate knowledge are coincident, indeed, 


34  Drscusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


as I conceive, one and the same. But in being conscious 
of a belief, we are not conscious of the thing believed, 
because it is not now and here present: it is not imme 
diately known. We immediately know the belief; we 
mediately know the thing believed. 

Just as soon as experience begins we begin to form 
faith-judgments in regard to transcendent realities. As 
soon as we are conscious of our mental phenomena, we 
begin to be conscious of a conviction or belief that it is 
we ourselves, that it is our personal spirits, that are thus 
phenomenally manifested. So, also, we begin to be 
conscious of a conviction of, or belief in, cause, the 
substance of matter, and occult force, as soon as we are 
conscious of external phenomena. 

Now, it is the province of the thinking faculty to deal 
not only with external percepts, but with internal also; 
and let it be remembered that these internal pereepts — 
that is, the perceived phenomena of our own subjective 
being — include beliefs in transcendent realities, such 
as cause, substance, space, duration, and God. Hence 
‘ our beliefs as well as our thoughts, feelings and volitions, 
become the objects of reflection. They may be analyzed, 
‘ compared, generalized, and inferences may be derived 
from them. They become the objects, in a word, both 
of metaphysical analysis and logical elaboration. They 
may, therefore, be arranged into systematic form; in 
other words, they are liable to scientific treatment. 

The ground has been taken in these remarks, that 
conception cannot overpass the limits of the materials 
furnished by the presentative and representative facul- 


Tue DerinitTion oF THEOLOGY. 35 


ties. How does this position consist with the assertion 
that our beliefs in occult and transcendent realities, such 
as substance and God, become proper subjects for treat- 
ment by the thinking faculty? What has already been 
said serves to relieve this difficulty, but a further solu- 
tion lies here: our beliefs as facts are objects perceived ,- 
by consciousness, and consequently we can think them; 
although it be true that the contents of these beliefs — 
the things believed — are not objects perceived by con- 
sciousness, and hence we cannot think them. But of 
what avail are the concepts of the beliefs as mere facts, 
without concepts of the facts which are believed? How 
can the unconceived facts believed enter into a logical 
process? These questions reach downwards to the ulti- 
mate difficulty, and in answer the following considera- 
tions are in all humility submitted: 

In the first place, the thinking faculty is competent , 
to deal with the finite manifestations of the transcendent | 
realities believed. So far its procedure is confessedly 
legitimate, because consistent with the limits peculiarly 
belonging to it. . 

In the second place, the transcendent objects of,~” 
mediate knowledge constitute valid elements of scientific 
arrangement, because faith as one rational power com- 
municates them to thought as another rational power. 
It may be objected that the limited capacity of thought 
would disqualify it for being receptive of the knowledge ‘ 
imparted by faith. But thought may employ the know- 


ledge without being able to comprehend its whole J 
measure, somewhat as a man, upon information received 


36 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


from others, profitably uses diamonds in trade, although 
himself ignorant of, and it may be incapable of under- 
standing, the secret of their great value. 

In the third place, thought and faith, by a wonderful 


‘synergism, act conjointly in the employment of this 


transcendent knowledge, which is unattainable by the 
thinking faculty alone. Thought in dealing with the 


matter — that is, the materials — of knowledge has a 


two-fold office to discharge. It may be concerned either 


. with its form, or with its truth. Acting metaphysically, 


or, to speak more broadly, extra-logically, it furnishes 


‘ the matter which is competent to it, and investigates its 


truth or falsity. Acting logically, it gives to this matter 
the form required by the laws in conformity with which 
logic proceeds. In the performance of this latter fune- 
tion — the logical — it might designate the materials 
with which it deals by arbitrary symbols. A syllogism 


would be formally valid, even though the premises and 


the conclusion were materially false, provided the con- 
clusion is legitimated by the premises. Now, some of 
the matter with which logic has to do is furnished by 
thought. With this matter logic deals formally. But 
faith furnishes other matter which transcends the ca- 


' pacity of thought. With this matter also logic is com- 


petent to deal, and does in fact deal, formally. Not 
being concerned with the questions concerning the ma- 
terials thus communicated, it proceeds to impose upon 
them its forms. The infinite, delivered by faith, it 
might represent by an arbitrary symbol, just as it might 
the finite. What, then, hinders an infinite element from 
being embraced in a logical system 


Tur DeriniTion oF THEOLOGY. ot 


This, however, is not all. It is of immense import- 
ance that the matter with which logic formally deals 
should be true. Thought by no means exhausts its office 
by securing the formal correctness required by logic, but ” 
is bound in obedience to its fundamental laws to furnish 
true matter. It presides over the logical processes, with 
a distinct regard to material truth. So is it with faith, _ 
in respect to the transcendent matter which it delivers. 
It also presides over the logical processes, with a distinct , 
regard to the transcendent matter which it alone com- 
municates. 

In addition to this it deserves to be remarked, that he 
who thinks and believes and reasons is one and the same ~ 
man. He who cannot think the infinite is he who be- 
lieves it. It is his faith which delivers to the thinking 
faculty, as logical, the knowledge of the infinite, and ” 
logic can include it in its process because it is his logic. 
The man who believes is the man who logically reasons. 
The faith-knowledge is as much his knowledge as thev 
thought-knowledge. And as thought employs the ma- 
terials which are not originated by itself, but by the 
presentative and representative faculties, so it operates ” 
upon the knowledge which springs not from itself, but 
from faith. It is the same man who perceives, imagines, 
conceives, believes, and logically reasons. All these 
functions are reduced to unity upon his indivisible in- 
telligence. 

To conclude this inquiry: there is a sense in which, 
obviously, the infinite God cannot be a subject for logical’ 
classification. He is the ultimate and all-comprehendingy 
Being, the édvrw¢ dv. There is no being higher than 


38 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIONS. 


he under which as a genus he can be reduced; and there 
is no species under him in which his essence is included. 
y But there is a sense in which he must be distinguished 
from all other beings. In that sense, we imply that the 
ygenus being or existence includes under it two specific 
kinds of being — infinite and finite. There are other 
beings than God. He is not they, and they are not he. 
Otherwise the doctrine of the Pantheist is admitted. 
Now it is competent to logic to signalize this difference. 
That this is true is proved in many practical instances. 
We pursue this method against the Pantheist, and every 
theologian and preacher employs it in regard to sin and 
redemption. We prove the pardonableness of infinite 
/guilt by appealing to infinite mercy exercised through 
the infinite merit of the Saviour, and the new creation 
of the spiritually dead sinner by referring to the infinite 
power of the Holy Ghost. 
While, then, there is a sense in which the infinite is 
indefinable, there is another sense in which it may be 
“logically defined, may be employed in logical processes, 
and may, consequently, enter into the logical construc- 
tion of a system of theology. This is practically illus- 
trated by those writers who, although in a certain and 
an obvious sense they deny that God is a subject of 
definition, and that a science of the infinite is possible, 
yet proceed to furnish a definition of God, and to 
vindicate the claims of theology, dealing as it does with 
the infinite, to be considered a science. Thus Dr. 
Thornwell, a distinguished example of that class, com- 
mends the “definition” of God given in the Westminster 
Shorter Catechism, and goes on to say: “Here the genus 


Tur Derrnrtion oF THEOLOGY. 39 


to which the substance of God is referred is spirit, in 
strict accordance with the Scriptures and the manifesta- 
tions of his nature which are made by his works; the 
difference, those qualities which belong to spirit in its 
full and normal development, heightened beyond all 
pounds of conception by terms which are borrowed from 
God as an object of faith.” 

Having considered the objections urged against the 
proximate genus in the definition of theology which has 
been given, let us attend to those directed against the 
specific difference — religion. \ 

1. That great theologian, Dr. Charles Hodge, objectsy /. 
to it on two grounds; in the first place, because of the 
ambiguity of the term religion, and, in the second place, 
because this definition makes theology independent of 
the Bible. 

(1) So far as the objection turns upon the doubtful ¥ a. 
etymology of the word religion, it cannot be allowed 
much weight. Whatever the derivation of the word may 
be, it expresses notions which are with sufficient definite-~ 
ness entertained by all men. It is universally under- 
stood to mean, either a creed, having for its contents 
the doctrine of God’s existence, nature and relations to 
his creatures, of the reciprocal relations of his creatures 
to him, and of the worship and service due to him from 
them, as far as they are intelligent; or, a character and 
life of intelligent creatures corresponding with that 
creed. It is, therefore, at the same time clear and 
definite enough to prevent misconception, and broad 
enough to answer all the purposes of a required defini- 
tion. There is no other term, so far as appears, which 


XN 


40 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. : 


can be substituted for it in an attempt to signify in 
language all the professed efforts of men to realize in 
some systematic form the notions which have been men- 

_ tioned as universally entertained. One cannot employ 
the antithesis of true and false religion, without using 
the term religion as common to both members of it. 
This is conclusive. 

If the ambiguity of the term religion be said to lie in 
its equivocal signification either of an objective creed 
or of a subjective life, it may be sufficient to refer to the 
explanation which has been furnished in the preceding 
remarks. But if, with somewhat of technical captious- 
ness, it be still urged that the terms of a definition should 
not need to be explained, the difficulty may be easily 
removed by the insertion of the word objective into the 
specific difference. The definition, broadly, would then 

’ be: Theology is the science of objective religion, and, 
more narrowly, the science of true, objective religion. 

(2) In considering the objection that the definition 
makes theology independent of the Bible, a distinction 
must be taken. If the definition be regarded in its 
broadest sense, the remark is true; it makes theology 
independent of the Bible; that is to say, it does not 
confine it to the Bible. There may be some theology 
which is not biblical. There is a theology of the Koran 
as well as a theology of the Bible. The objection pro- 
ceeds upon the denial of a distinction between a false 
and a true theology. It is, therefore, too narrowly 
grounded. If the definition be considered in a narrower 
sense — that is, as one of Christian theology or the 
' theology of the Christian religion, it must be admitted 


~ 


— 


Tur DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY. 41 


that there is some theology which is, in a measure at 
least, independent of the Bible. We must concede this, 
or deny the application of the term theologian to the v 
Rationalist, the Mystic and the Romanist; and that 
would involve a technical censure of universal usage, a 
censure which could only be employed by the orthodox 
Protestant upon the supposition that there is no theology 
but his own. But if the definition be taken in its nar- 
rowest sense — that is, the sense in which it is used by | 
the orthodox Protestant, who makes true religion and 
biblical religion one and the same — the objection is not 
relevant. For he expressly contends that theology is 
not a scientific arrangement of the facts of the religious , 
consciousness, but of the facts, or data, objectively con- 
templated, of the Bible— the external standard with 
which religious experience ought to conform, and by 
which it is to be tested. 

(3) Dr. Hodge’s own conception of the scope of the-» ¢, 
ology evinces alike the propriety of employing religion 
as the differentia, and the necessity of a broader and a 
narrower definition. He first gives the following defi- 
nition, “Theology, therefore, is the exhibition of the 
facts of Scripture in their proper order and relation, 
with the principles or general truths involved in the facts 
themselves, and which pervade and harmonize the 
whole.” 1 Subsequently he says, “We have, therefore, to 
restrict theology to its true sphere, as the science of the 
facts of divine revelation so far as these facts concern 
the nature of God and our relation to him, as his crea- 
tures, as sinners, and as the subjects of redemption. All 

1 Syst. Theol., Vol. I., p. 19. 


’ 


~ 


42 Discussions or TuEoLocrcaL Questions. 


these facts, as just remarked, are in the Bible. But as 
some of them are revealed by the works of God, and by 
the nature of man, there is so far a distinction between 
natural theology and theology considered distinctively 
as a Christian science.” 1 In both these statements there 
is needed a principle of unity which will relate to a 
common end the diversified and often in themselves 
heterogeneous “facts of Scripture,” and of course the 
same is true in regard to the “facts of divine revelation,” 
which are in part naturally revealed in the works, and 
in part supernaturally revealed in the Word of God. It 
is true that Dr. Hodge’s definition requires the facts in 
either case to be taken in their connection and harmony; 
but it does not furnish the nexus. That is religion. It 
ought, therefore, to have an articulate place in the defini- 
tion. The works of God and the works of the Devil, for 
example, are, in themselves considered, diametrically 
opposed to each other, but the record of those works has 
a common religious end. Religion is the compend of the 
record, and theology the science of that religion. We 
may go further, and inquire for the principle of unity 
in religion, and we shall find it to be God, as its supreme 
object — as its efficient and its final cause. But as, to 
avoid misconception, and for other obvious reasons, it is 
inexpedient to define theology as the science of God, the 
next best thing to do in the attempt to express unity is 
to define it as the science of religion. 

The statements cited, it has been remarked, also evince 
the necessity of a wider and a narrower definition of 
theology. The distinguished author admits that there 

‘ Tbid., p. 21. 


i ewe 


Tur Derrinition or THEOLOGY. 43 


is a distinction permissible “between natural theology 
and theology considered distinctively as a Christian 
science.” Here, evidently, theology is regarded as 
generic, and as falling into two species, natural and ( 
Christian. But as religious truth is professedly the 
object-matter about which each of these specific sciences 
is concerned it constitutes the bond of unity between 
them. In a word, a broad as well as a narrower defini- 
tion is necessitated. But whether broad or narrow, the 
specific difference in the definition is religion. 

There is a sense, however, in which the distinction, 
as here used by Dr. Hodge, is hardly susceptible of justi- i 
fication; for, while a false natural theology — that is, 
one judged to be false from a biblical point of view — is 
to be distinguished from theology as the science of 
biblical religion, and yet is loosely entitled to the desig- 
nation of theology, it must be observed that a true 
natural theology is included in biblical theology; so 
that, in the narrow definition adopted by the orthodox 
Protestant, natural theology is embraced. The prin |, 
ciples and conclusions of natural theology are enounced 
in the Scriptures. That theology is a department of / 
philosophy: it is a religious philosophy. It has for its 
object-matter the truths of natural religion, so far as 
those truths were naturally, and not supernaturally 
revealed. To be plain, it is concerned about those truths 
of natural religion with which reason and conscience, 
in their relation to the external universe, were originally 
competent to deal. But it is not occupied about the 
supernaturally revealed elements of natural religion: ‘ 
the covenant of works, for example, with all its related 


x 


44 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


truths. Now philosophy, so far as it has been divorced, 
in consequence of man’s sin, from religion, may be con- 
ceived as occupying different territory from theology, 
but so far as it is a religious philosophy, in other words, 
natural theology, it covers the same ground with biblical 
theology considered not as to its evangelical or redemp- 
tive, but its natural, contents. The Bible republishes 
natural theology. It gives it in a clearer form than mere 
reason can attain, inasmuch as it is God himself who 
furnishes it. So that the man, who, apart from the 
Bible, would now undertake to construct a natural the- 
ology, would be like one who would set out to explore the 
ocean without a compass or a chart. The narrow defini- 
tion of the orthodox Protestant, therefore, which makes 
theology the science of Bible-religion covers the field of 
natural theology. They are not different species of the- 
ology; they are one and the same ‘species. He who 
chooses to call the deductions of his mere reason a the- 
ology may follow the sparks of his own mind, but he will 
pursue an ignis fatuus, and his pretended science will be 
but a tangled morass. From the strict Protestant 
point of view, there is no true theology but that which 
is derived from the Scriptures. This Dr. Hodge prop- 
erly enounces when he concedes that all the facts of 
natural theology “are in the Bible.” 


THE DISTRIBUTION OR DIVISION OF 
THEOLOGY. 


[The methods of distributing theology have been, from its 
standard or measure, from the condition of its possessors, from its 
source, from its truth, from its matter, from its manner of treat- 
ment, from the style of discussion, and from its historical develop- 
ment. Even in the United States widely divergent methods have 
been employed.—EpiTor. | 


ET us proceed, then, to notice the most prominent 
of those divisions which have been adopted by 
writers on Systematic Theology in this country. 

1. Dr. Dabney distributes theology, according to an ; 
old method, into Natural and Revealed. This division, 
although even now frequently employed in theological 
discussions, is liable to serious objections. 

(1) As it is determined by the sources from which the 
knowledge is derived, “natural theology,” remarks Dr. 
Thornwell, “is that knowledge of God and of human » 
duty which is acquired from the light of nature, or from 
the principles of human reason, unassisted by a super- 
natural revelation. Revealed theology, on the other 
hand, is that which rests on divine revelation. This / 
distinction is real, but it is useless. There are truths 
which reason is competent to discover, as there are other 
truths which can only be known by a special communi- 
cation from God. But the religion of man has never 
been conditioned exclusively by natural truth. In his 


46 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONs. 


unfallen condition he was placed under a dispensation 
which involved a supernatural revelation. He has never 
been left to the sole guidance of his reason, and therefore 
a mere natural theology, in the sense indicated, has 
never been the sufficient explanation of his state.” 
This criticism would seem to be just, but it is diffieult 
to perceive why it is not to a certain extent applicable to 
_ Dr. Thornwell’s own division into Moral Government 
' simple, Moral Government modified by the Covenant of 
Works, and Moral Government modified by the Cove- 
nant of Grace. A simple moral government — that is, 
one the essential principles of which as a dispensation 
of naked law unmodified by covenant arrangements — 
was never historically realized in the condition of man. 
He was from the first placed under a federal economy. 
It is, of course, possible to contemplate both a natural 
theology and a moral government logically, to abstract 
their doctrines, principles and facts, and view them 
apart from an actual exhibition in the concrete. But 
Dr. Thornwell’s objection would appear to hold alike 
against Dr. Dabney’s distribution and his own. It is 
better to adopt a division at once simple and compre 
hensive — one which would cover both the essential 
principles logically regarded and the historical case as 
actually developed. Such a distribution will be sug- 
gested in the sequel. 
(2) The discrimination between natural theology and 
’ revealed proceeds upon the supposition that the former 
was not and is not now revealed. This, however, is a 
mistake. There are three ways in which we may con- 
ceive a natural theology as revealed. In the first place, 


Tue DistrIBsuTion oF THEOLOGY. 47 


those fundamental religious principles and potential v 


truths which were inlaid in man’s constitution at first 
in the form of laws of thought and belief in the reason, 
of rectitude in the conscience, and of esthetics in the 
affections, may properly be regarded as a natural reve- 
lation. In the second place, it is probable — at least, 
we do not know the contrary to a presumption created 


by the record in Genesis — that, in the intercourse with , 


man in the garden to which his heavenly Maker conde- 
scended, much of the material, out of which a natural 
theology may have been constructed, was immediately 
and orally revealed. In the third place, whatever of 
natural theology deserves the name has been super- 
naturally revealed in the Scriptures. It is true that 
Adam, had he not fallen, would have been able to frame 
a logically digested system of natural religious truth — 
that is, a natural theology; but he did not, for he fell 
We are the only subjects of such a theology, and to us it 
is revealed in the Bible. The great presuppositions of 
nature, in themselves valid, but obscured by sin, are 
taken up into, and confirmed by, the Scriptures as a 
divine, supernatural revelation to man. The antithesis, 


therefore, between natural and revealed theology is. 


erroneous. The appropriate antithesis would be between 
natural and supernatural — that is, naturally revealed 
and supernaturally revealed theology. But the insuper- 
able difficulty in the way of that distinction is that the 
naturally revealed is now the supernaturally revealed. 
To us who have the Scriptures the antithesis, in point of 
fact, vanishes. We must go to the Bible for a true 
natural theology. It is not intended to deny that even 


~ 


48 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


the heathen may know enough of natural theology to 
render them inexcusable for their sins; but it is plain 
that such a natural theology is not one which a Christian 
theologian would impart. 

(3) Were natural theology incapable of being viewed 
as revealed, the distribution into natural and revealed 
theology would render the divisions disproportionate to 
each other, so far as the bulk of their contents would be 
concerned. The whole doctrine of both the covenant of 
works and the covenant of grace would be embraced in 
one of the members of the division. This difficulty may 
not be of much moment, but it would be better if it could 
be avoided by the adoption of another division, which 
would answer the end contemplated, and at the same 
time be more evenly balanced and symmetrical. 

(4) As nearly all sciences are defined, not from their 


source, but from the object-matter about which they are 


concerned, it would be desirable that theology, which is 
defined as the science of religion, should be distributed 
in accordance with that definition — that is, that the 
divisive principle should be not its source, but the object- 
matter with which it deals. The kinds of religion about 
which it is concerned should furnish the basis of its 
division. This would render the distribution at once 
simple and perspicuous. 

2. Dr. Breckinridge divides theology into Objective, 


\ Subjective and Relative or Polemic; or, to use his 


precise language, “the knowledge of God considered 
Objectively, considered Subjectively, and considered 
Relatively.” Lest he be misunderstood, let us hear his 
own statement of the case: “In the first place, the whole 


Tue DistrreuTion or THEOLOGY. 49 


of that knowledge [of God] may be considered and 
treated as mere knowledge — like any other complete 
and positive knowledge; that is, it is not only capable 
of a purely objective treatment, but to be understood 
clearly it must be treated in that manner. In the second 
place, that knowledge of God, in its intimate and trans- 
forming effects upon man, in his inner life, his nature, 
his condition, his destiny, is not only capable of a com- 
plete subjective treatment, but is fully comprehensible 
in its effects, only so far as it is considered in that 
manner. This distinction, moreover, accords with the 
fundamental distinction of philosophy, as applied to 
man; and, what is better, with the primeval effort of 
our intelligence, in taking account of itself, to distin- 
guish the internal from the external. But the knowledge 
of God, objectively considered, and the knowledge of 
God, subjectively considered — each takes in the whole ° 
sum and result of Exegetic and Didactic Theology, and 
presents that whole sum and result, once as pure, syste- 
matic truth unto salvation, and once as pure, systematic 
truth actually saving man. As to Polemic Theology, it 
is very obvious that it is simply the systematic confu- 
tation of all untruth, militating against the salvation 
of man; and that the only absolute way of doing this 
is to confront it with divine truth, whether objective or 
subjective, unto salvation.” 

It will be perceived that Dr. Breckinridge undertakes 
to treat these several aspects of theology apart from and 
independently of each other. The method may have » 
certain advantages to speculation, but for purposes of 
teaching it is opposed by formidable objections. 

4 


50 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


(1) These divisions cannot, from the very nature of 
the case, be kept from overlapping each other. They 
cannot be completely disentangled, and the result must 
be unnecessary repetition; unnecessary, not upon the 
supposition that this method is pursued, for then repe 
tition becomes necessary, but unnecessary, because 
another method may be adopted upon which it would 
not occur. 

(2) It is not the method, so far as method may be 
said to be observed in them, which is pursued in the 
Scriptures. In them “the truth unto salvation,” the 
“truth actually saving men,” and the truth in its oppo- 
sition to error — all these aspects of divine truth are 
presented not separately, but concomitantly. It may be 
said that the Bible contains no systematic presentation 
of truth. But Dr. Breckinridge himself remarks that 
“the nature of God and his relations to all truth are 
such that it very illy becomes us to say, that with refer- 
ence to himself his statements are not equally systematic 
in every order, and to whatever extent he might make 
them. Absolutely considered, what we should say is 
that divine truth is necessarily revealed after a divine 
method. . . . It is demonstrably certain on the face 
of the sacred record, that all revelation has been given 
in a perfectly systematic manner, with reference to 
human intelligence — that it all professes expressly to 
be one glorious whole, and demands of us in terms that 
to which our very nature obliges us, namely, the inter- 
pretation of it all according to its own proportion, and 
as an outbirth of the eternal counsel of God.” 

(3) Truth and error are, each of them, most clearly 


Tue DistrisuTion or THEOLOGY. 51 


and effectively expounded when brought into the relation » 
of contrast. It is a well-known fact that things of any 
sort which bear any analogy to each other are most 
clearly distinguished by a comparison of one with the 
other. The more closely they resemble one another, the 
more necessary is such a comparison. A counterfeit 
coin is most easily and surely detected by laying it by 
the side of the true. At the same time, the true is 
verified by comparison with the false. The comparison 
illuminates both. Dr. Breckinridge himself tells us that 
he purposed to pursue this method in his contemplated 
volume on the Relative Knowledge of God — to confute 
error by bringing it into contrast with the truth. It 
would have been well if he had throughout his work also 
illustrated the truth by evincing its contrast to error. 
This method holds equally good in both respects, on the 
principle that “the science of contraries is one.” 

It is in this way that the church has elaborated her 
theology. It was wrought out in the fierce heat of con-— 
troversy; not that conflict created the truth, for it was 
from the beginning supplied by the Word of God. But 
even revealed truth was but imperfectly grasped until 
collision with heresy compelled its clear apprehension 
and its unmistakable enunciation. It is in this way that 
the creeds of the church have received their formulation, 
and have discharged the invaluable office of standards in 
the midst of revolt, defection and battle. The doctrine 
of the Trinity has been cast into its distinct and perma- 
nent form in consequence of the Arian, Sabellian and 
Unitarian heresies; that of the Person of Christ, be- 
cause of the Nestorian, Apollinarian, Monophysite and 


52 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


Monothelite, and that of Original Sin, because of the 
Pelagian. God’s sovereignty, unconditional election, 
particular atonement, total depravity and inability, legal 
representation, efficacious grace, and the perseverance 
of the saints have been brought into clear light and 
fortified by comparison with the doctrines of Arminian- 
ism; and within the circle of professed Calvinism the 
Federal Theology, especially the doctrine of imputation, 
by contrast with the errors of Placeus and the school of 
Saumur. Experience is a safe guide, and that of the 
church places it beyond question that the clearest appre- 
hensions of truth have been acquired through its conflict 
with error, and that the most thorough-going method of 
teaching truth is by contrasting it with error, as the best 
way of expounding error is by contrasting it with truth. 
Dogmatics and Polemics should go hand in hand. 

3. The Doctors Hodge, father and son, adopt a preva- 
lent German method and distribute theology into 
Theology Proper, Anthropology, Soteriology, Escha- 
tology, and Ecclesiology. Dr. A. A. Hodge inserts 
Christian Ethics between Soteriology and Eschatology. 
This distribution, lacking as it does a comprehensive 
and generic character, is yet not without usefulness if 
regarded as specific and subordinate. The titles of some 
of the divisions are apposite and convenient, a fact 
which is evinced by their frequent employment in the 
ological literature. The distribution, however, is char- 
acterized by grave, if not fatal, defects. 

(1) The greatest objection to it is that it possesses no 
* principle upon which the members of the division may 
be collected into unity. This is a serious difficulty to a 


Tue DistrIpuTion oF THEOLOGY. 53 


branch of knowledge which professes to be a science, and 
especially to a department of theology which emphati- 
eally claims to be systematic. Each of the parts of this 
division may have its own ultimate quality upon which 
it is reduced to unity, but there is no such quality which 


brings into unity all the parts. This is vital to classifi- . 


cation, without it no science can be said to exist. Here 
the species are found, but there is no genus. If there 
be, it is merely implied; it is not expressed, as it ought 
to be, in the very terms of the distribution. 

(2) Some of the divisions interpenetrate one another. 
They cannot be kept logically separate. The attempt is 
made, by an arbitrary employment of language, to 
disjoin elements which are inseparable. For example, 
the doctrine of God must enter into the consideration 
of the doctrine of man. How could sin be treated of 
except as an infraction by man of the law of God? How 
could the creation of man be discussed without taking 
into view God as Creator? The truth is that theology 
involves the knowledge of God and the knowledge of 
man as related to each other. Neither can be satisfac- 
torily developed apart from the other. Again, there 
cannot be a competent doctrine of man, if he be regarded 
simply as innocent, or condemned on account of sin. 
He must be considered also as the subject of redemption ; 
otherwise there is no exhaustive account of his condition. 
It is evident that the distribution is in some respects 
arbitrary and illogical. Some of the titles are too broad 
for the members of the division to which they are at- 
tached. They really embrace more than the contents 
which they professedly cover. The doctrine concerning 


e. 


54 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIons. 


God must include more than is actually contained in 
theology proper, that concerning man more than is 
treated of in anthropology. God is a Saviour as well 
as a Creator and Providential Ruler; and man is a 
subject of redemption as well as of condemnation. The 
divisions, of necessity, run into each other. They are 
not, and cannot be, specifically discriminated. 

4, Dr. Thornwell furnishes a three-fold division of 
theology — the doctrine of Moral Government Essential 
or Unmodified, of Moral Government Modified by the 
Covenant of Works, of Moral Government Modified by 
the Covenant of Grace. He thus explains himself: “A 
complete Treatise of Theology, according to these state- 
ments, must fall into three parts: (1) The development 
of those essential relations betwixt God and man out of 
which arises a moral government, together with an 
exposition of the fundamental principles of such a gov- 
ernment. This part, embracing the being and character 
of God, the original state of man, and his natural duties 
and obligations, might be called Preliminary, or Intro- 
_ ductory. (2) The development of the modification of 
‘ moral government in its principle and application, as 
realized in the Covenant of Works. This part might be 
called Natural Religion, as it treats of the form in which 
man became related to God immediately upon his erea- 
tion. (3) The development of the Covenant of Grace 
’ or the scheme of Redemption. This part may be called 
Supernatural Religion, or the Religion of Grace, and 
embraces all that is peculiar to Christianity. To state 
the same thing in another form: the first part treats of 
God, and of moral government in its essential principles ; 


Tur DistTRIBUTION OF THEOLOGY. 55 


the second part treats of moral government as modified 
by the Covenant of Works; the third part treats of 
moral government as modified by the Covenant of Grace. 
The point of unity between the two covenants is their 
concurrence in a common end; the point of divergence, ° 
the different states in which man is contemplated. Both 
are answers to the question, How shall man be adopted 
into the family of God? But the Covenant of Works 
answers it with reference to man as a moral creature, in 
a state of integrity; the Covenant of Grace answers it 
with reference to man as a sinner, under the condemna- 
tion of the law. These three divisions seem to me to 
exhaust the whole subject of Theology.” 

One cannot be sure that this would have been the final 
form in which Dr. Thornwell would have given his 
conception of the manner in which theology should be , 
divided, as death arrested his hand before he had com- 
pleted his system. But it stands among the latest pro- 
duets of his thinking which he has left on record. The 
distribution has the merit of being free from the defect 
which marks that last-mentioned: it collects the mem- 
bers of the division into unity upon the principle of 
moral government. The doctrine of God’s moral govern- 
ment is made generic, including under it the three 
species of moral government, as simple, as modified by 
the covenant of works, and as modified by the covenant 
of grace. The division is, to my mind, the best that has 
been furnished, but it is attended with a few defects 
which expose it to criticism. 

(1) The principle of division is hardly comprehensive , 
enough. The moral government of God is not, strictly 


56 Discussions or Turotoaicat Questions. 


speaking, sufficiently broad to cover the whole of that 
divine government about which theology is legitimately 
concerned. The physical government of God, as related 
to the facts, forces, laws of the material world, enters, 
at least to some extent, into its object-matter, but that 
aspect of the divine government is, by the terms of the 
division, left out of account. Theism largely deals with 
the physical government of God, and theism, in some 
degree, falls under the scope of systematic theology. 
Dr. Thornwell himself, for instance, discusses, and very 
ably discusses, the doctrine of creation, and presents 
very clearly the cosmological argument for the being of 
God. These topics, however, relate in the main to God’s 
physical government. Had he used the unqualified term 
government, instead of government limited by the word 
moral, his distribution would not have been liable to 
this criticism. 

There are two conceivable ways, in either or both of 
which the point of this objection may be blunted. Dr. 
Thornwell was accustomed to urge the view that the 
material system is of no further value than as con- 
tributing to the ends of the moral, and he might have 
said that the physical government of God in relation 
to the former is a presupposition to his moral govern- 
ment which would of necessity come under considera- 
tion, but which it was not worth his while to signalize 
by a technical accuracy of expression. Or, he might 
have purposely omitted to mention it specially, as be- 
longing for treatment, not to Systematic Theology, but 
to Apologetics. But while such a supposition is con- 
ceivable, as explanatory of the omission adverted to, the 


Tur DistriBution or THEoLoey. Ce Be 


difficulty would not by that means be entirely relieved. 
Dr. Thornwell’s own discussions of the relation of God 
to the physical system of the universe, the consideration 
that some treatment of that relation cannot be excluded 
from systematic theology, and the fact that much of the 
conflict of theology at the present day is with a physical 
science which tends to materialism and atheism, serve to 
show that it would have been better had the principle of 
this division been expressed in language broad enough 
to include explicitly the physical as well as the moral 
government of God. , 


(2) The terms natural religion are used in too narrow | 


a sense. Taking them to designate the religion of man 
in innocence, as Dr. Thornwell elsewhere does, it would 
seem clear that they embrace more than the religion of 
the covenant of works. There would have been a natural 
religion had God not freely instituted that covenant 
with man, but left him under a naked dispensation of 
law, with reason and conscience as his guides in connec- 
tion with the lessons conveyed by the external universe. 


True, when the covenant was instituted it entered as a , 


constituent element into natural religion, but it cannot 
justly be regarded as exhausting its contents. To this it 
may be added that the terms natural religion or the 
religion of nature are employed by general custom to 


signify those essential principles of moral government , 


which Dr. Thornwell himself logically distinguishes 
from the principles of that government as modified by 
the covenant of works. The usage may be too narrow, 
but it is correct as far as it goes. Natural religion is 
broader than the religion of the covenant of works. 


< 


v 


=x 


~ 


58 Discussions or THEoLogicaL QuEsTIONs. 


(3) The terms supernatural religion as antithetical to 
natural religion are attended with some obseurity. The 
reason is that the covenant of works was a supernatural 
element of natural religion. It was as the product of a 
free determination of the divine will supernaturally 
added to the mere religion of nature—that is, the 
religion which would have sprung from conscience and 
reason in their relation to the external universe, and 
would have embraced the essential principles of moral 
government. It is true that natural religion did actually 
include this supernaturally added element, but to avoid 
the ambiguity which might possibly arise from the use 
of the term supernatural, it would be well to substitute 
for it redemptive or evangelical. The antithesis would 
then be between natural and redemptive religion, or 
more simply, natural religion and redemption or the 
gospel. That would be clear and unambiguous. 

The terms religion of grace as contradistinguished to 
the terms natural religion are open to the same excep- 
tion. The covenant of works, as Dr. Thornwell often 
shows, was a fruit of grace, and had Adam maintained 
his integrity during his specified time of trial his pos- 


. terity would have been justified by grace operating in 


their case, as that of conscious agents, through imputed 
righteousness. Grace, therefore, needs to be qualified 
by the word redeeming or recovering, as characterizing 
the religion of sinners under the gospel scheme. This 
may seem captious, but in a formal distribution of 
theology a technical accuracy is proper, which would in 
ordinary discourse be deemed unnecessary. 

5. The division which I venture to propose is, into the 


Tue DistrinuTion or THEOLOGY. 59 


Theology of Natural Religion and the Theology of | 


Evangelical! Religion (or briefly, Redemption, or the 
Gospel). 


=< 


It is with some hesitation that this distribution is | 
offered, in view of the fact that it does not materially © 


differ from that furnished by Dr. Thornwell — a hesi- 
tation which is, however, relieved by the consideration 
that the division has been suggested by the writings of 
Dr. Thornwell himself. To prevent possible miscon- 


ception a word of caution is necessary. The theology of : 


Natural Religion is not to be understood as the same 
with Natural Theology. They differ in an important 
respect. The object-matter of Natural Theology is not 
co-extensive with Natural Religion. The former ex- 


cludes, the latter includes, the important topic of the" 


covenant of works. The contents of the former may 
be said to be naturally revealed, those of the latter, in 
addition to this naturally revealed element, embrace also 
the supernaturally revealed element of the covenant of 
works. The Theology of Natural Religion, therefore, is 
more extensive than Natural Theology, even as re- 
published in the Scriptures, by the whole matter of the 
covenant of works. 

Let it be also noticed that the title, Theology of Super- 


< 
: 


natural Religion which is obviously antithetical to the 
Theology of Natural Religion, is purposely avoided in ~ 


1 Were the word redemptive in classical use by the older divines 
it might be here employed. As it is, however, more and more 
coming into current use it may properly be employed as convertible 
with evangelical. It would perhaps have the advantage of being 
more specific and designative. 


ra 
y 
- ‘ , 


4.. 


60  Duiscusstons or THEroLocicaL Questions. 


order that ambiguity may be escaped. The covenant 
‘of works was a supernatural element of natural religion. 
To that extent natural religion might, although not in 
strict propriety, be regarded as a supernatural religion. 
The covenant, though incorporated into natural religion 
— that is, the whole religion of man unfallen — was 
supernaturally revealed. It was not a suggestion of 
nature. It never could have been evolved from mere 
nature. To avoid a confusion which might result from 
this fact, it was deemed best to use a term which pre- 
cisely and completely expresses the specifie difference 
by which the religion of man as a sinner subject to 
redemption is distinguished from the religion of man 
in innocence. The distinction is clearly and unmistak- 
ably indicated between the theology of Adam and the 
theology of a redeemed sinner — a distinction which it 
is of vital consequence to observe. 

This division of theology is supported by reasons 
which are not destitute of force: 

(1) It has the advantage — and it is not an incon- 
siderable one — of making the distribution of theology 
turn upon its definition. If, as is generally conceded, 
and as the previous discussion has shown, theology may 
be properly defined as the Science of Religion, nothing 
would be more easy and natural than to make the kinds 
of theology correspond with the kinds of religion about 
which they are concerned. Now the religion of nature 
and the religion of redemption are the two generic sorts 
of religion which God has been pleased to communicate. 
It would seem obvious, then, that there are two corres- 
ponding sorts of theology — that of natural religion and 


: Tuer Distripution oF THEOLOGY. 61 


that of redemption. The division is as appropriate as it 
is natural. 5 

(2) It makes as near an approach as is possible tor 2 
simplicity. An unnecessary multiplication of members 
in the division of theology, as of every other science, is 
to be deprecated. Every division must, of course, con- 
sist of at least two members, but it is desirable that, if 
possible, it should embrace but two. Breckinridge’s and 
Thornwell’s have each three, Charles Hodge’s five, and | 
A. A. Hodge’s six. This has only two, and if they are 
sufficient, the distribution possesses the merit of being 
simple. 

(3) It is exhaustive. There is no aspect of theology, y 2: 
no relation which it can possibly sustain, which is not 
included. As it embraces the essential principles of y 
God’s government, viewed as a whole, there is no order 
of creatures which falls outside of its scope. The 
doctrine of angels, as well as that of man, is covered by 
it. The physical government of God, in relation to the 
material system of the universe is not, even by impli- ° 
cation, excluded. His relation as Creator and Provi- 
dential Ruler to the material heavens and the material 
earth is involved. The scientific reduction of the 
naturally revealed facts of natural religion, which is 
natural theology, the scientific reduction of the super- 
naturally revealed facts connected with the covenant of 
works and of those belonging to the covenant of grace 
are all explicitly comprehended. It is more exhaustive 
than the division into the theologies of the two covenants, ” 
for it extends to all possible relations of creatures to 
God, even independent of a federal constitution, or a 


_ 


< 


oa 


62 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


representative economy. It is, for example, ordinarily 
supposed that the fallen angels did not, in their estate 
of innocence, exist under a federal or representative 
dispensation — at least, were not dealt with as a class 
under federal headship. But if so, their case would fall 
under the category of natural religion. There is no 
reason why that religion should be conceived as pecu- 
liarly restricted to man. It comprised principles which 
are capable of universal application. 

(4) This division is recommended by the fact that 
the principle upon which theology is distributed is a 
principle upon which it may be collected into unity. 
That principle is religion. Natural religion and re- 
demption are specifically distinguished from each other 
by peculiar and characteristic features, but each is a 
religion. Both, as species, are possessed of the essence 
of the genus — religion — under which they are in- 
cluded. Differ they do, as widely as the law and the 


- gospel, as innocence and guilt, as works and faith; still 


they are reducible to unity upon the idea of religion. 
What, then, is religion? Calvin, in the opening words 
of his immortal treatise, says. “Our wisdom, in so far as 
it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists 
almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and 
of ourselves.” He further remarks that “the knowledge 
of God and the knowledge of ourselves are bound 
together by a mutual tie.” By wisdom he evidently 
meant religion, and by true wisdom true religion. Now 
the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves, as 


, correlated, may be regarded either as didactic, and there- 


fore objective, or experimental, and therefore subjective. 


Tue DistrisutTion or THEOLOGY. 63 


In the one aspect it is a creed, and is expressed in the 
Scriptures; in the other it is a life, and is produced by ” 
the grace of the Spirit. Both these sorts of knowledge 
are brought together upon the principle of religion. 
Neither was designed to exist without the other. They 
are complementary to each other. The objective was 
not intended to be merely abstract, but to be subjectively 
realized in the concrete. So far we are on the path to 
the attainment of unity. But it may be urged, that in 
the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of ourselves, 
we have the terms of a disjunction. We are confronted 
by duality. In reply, it may be fairly said that it is 
sufficient to describe religion as the knowledge of God in 
his relations: not simply the knowledge of God con- 
sidered absolutely, but also considered relatively. Now 
the knowledge of relatives is one. In knowing God as 
related, we must know the objects to which he is related. 
Here then we reach the unity of which we are in search. 
Religion is the principle of unity in theology, because it 
is the knowledge of God in his relations. There is no 
higher unity which can be attained. God is to theology _ 
what he is to philosophy, the ultimate principle of unity. | 
He is its efficient cause, he is the supreme object of its 
teachings, and his glory is its ultimate end. The know- 
ledge of him, therefore, in himself and in his relations to ” 
ourselves, is the sum and substance of our religion. The 
diversified and apparently heterogeneous facts of the 
physical universe are collected into one great totality 
and reduced to unity by virtue of their relation to God 
as alike their first and their final cause. So is it with 
the facts of religion. | 


4 


ae 


+ 


< 


< 


< 


64 Discussions or TuEroLtocicaL QuEsTIONs. 


This fundamental principle of theology which Calvin 
applied to man is susceptible of extension to all the 
intelligent subjects of the moral government of God. 
The statement of it may be so broadened as to include 
them all. Religion, in its most comprehensive sense, is 


‘the knowledge of God and of the creature, in their 


reciprocal relations. As theology deals not only with 
man, who for obvious reasons is its principal subject, 
but also with other orders of moral beings, both unfallen 
and fallen, it is requisite that it should be defined and 
distributed upon a principle wide enough to embrace 
them all. Such a principle is religion — the knowledge 
of God in all the relations he sustains. It is compre- 
hensive enough to cover all conceivable cases in which 
creatures can stand related to the moral government of . 
God. How far the federal, or the representative, prin- 


. ciple has been employed, in the whole of the divine 


government, we cannot with absolute certainty decide. 
To my mind, it seems probable that the elect angels were 
collected into unity, through the principle of similarity 
of nature, upon the headship of Christ. We have some 
reason from the statements of Scripture to hold that 
view. But there is no positive ground for believing that 
the non-elect angels were dealt with through a covenant 
arrangement, either simple — that is, made with each 
of them separately from the others — or involving legal 
representation. If both, or either, of these angelic 
classes stood related to God’s government, not through 
covenant stipulations, but through the naked law operat- 
ing upon each individual standing upon his own foot, 
some principle of unity connecting their religion with 


Tur DistripuTion or THEoLoey. 65 


that of human beings would be necessitated, which would 
not be peculiar to a federal economy. Dr. Thornwell 


has suggested justification as the central principle of “i 


theology. Supposing this to be true, it could hold good 
only of a religion involving the federal principle; for, 
as Dr. Thornwell has himself conclusively shown, no 
justification is possible where that principle does not 
obtain. It is not inconceivable that God might have left 
man at first under a scheme of moral government in 


which only the essential principles of that government ° 


would have been exhibited, a scheme unmodified by 
covenant arrangements. In that case justification would 
have been excluded. Such might have been the case 
with the non-elect angels, before they fell from their 
estate of innocence. Now, unless it can be shown that 
theology is restricted to the case of man, it would be 
clear that a principle of religion, which would be entitled 
to the distinction of being a bond of unity between all 
the truths of theology, must be one which would enter 
as a constituent and all-pervading element into every 
scheme with which the Scriptures make us acquainted. 
If theology has a wider scope than the covenants under 


which the religion of man has been actually developed, “ 


a principle of unity is demanded which is not confined 
in its operation to a federal dispensation. To be “the 


central principle of all theology” it must be as broad as © 


theology itself. If by “all theology” and by “every 
divine system of religion,” in which justification is 
claimed by Dr. Thornwell to be the principle of unity, 
he meant to embrace the cases of the angels, elect and 


non-elect, he must, to have been consistent, have main- 
5 


— 


< 


~ 


66  Discusstons or THEOLoGIcAL QuESTIONS. 


tained that each of those angelic classes existed under 
a federal dispensation. If he did not design to include 
them, and contemplated man alone, the conception of 
theology which he employed in this particular argument 
was narrower than its scriptural contents. And, fur- 
ther, if he limited the view to man, he would have been 
obliged to deny the possibility of the actual, historical 
realization of the first member of his division of theology 
— namely, moral government in its essential principles, 
unmodified by covenant arrangements; for under such 
a scheme, if actualized, no justification would be pos- 
sible. - 
The importance of the doctrine of justification, espe- 
cially when eontemplated in all its sweep as both virtual 
and actual, cannot be exaggerated. It well deserves the 
high encomium of Luther of being articulus stantis vel 
cadentis ecclesie, and that of Calvin, commended by 
Thornwell, of being precipuus sustinende religionis 
cardo. But transcendently important as it confessedly 
is, it may be doubted whether it can bear the strain put 
upon it, whether it can discharge the high office invoked 
for it, by Dr. Thornwell, of a principle upon which 
either the theology which deals with the case of man, or 
that which embraces the religious universe, can be 
reduced to unity. A doctrinal truth which is capable 
of sustaining such a comprehensive relation cannot, 
from the nature of the case, be one which is simply 
specific and codrdinate with other doctrinal truths; it 
must be one which is generic and all-inclusive, the 
essence of which, so to speak, as all-qualifying, enters 
into and regulates every specific truth. It must, to 


Tue Distrreution oF THEOLOGY. 67 


employ the technical language of logic, furnish the 
generic attribute with which every connotation of marks 
begins, that serves to characterize a species. Now, 
limiting the view to man’s religion as revealed in the 
Scriptures, can the doctrine of justification sustain this 
generic relation to the doctrine of creation, of predes- 
tination in its wide sense, of reprobation,! of the moral 
law, of the Trinity, of providence in its whole extent ? 
One fails to see how it can. If it does not, it cannot be 
the principle which collects them, with all other doe- 
trines, into unity upon its all-pervading essence. If 
religion, and theology, which is its scientific reduction, 
be pushed out as it ought to be, and in accordance with 
the total contents of the Bible must be, beyond the con- 
fines of man’s history, and include in its universal sweep v 
all orders of intelligent, moral beings, it becomes still 
more evident that, however important and regulative the 
doctrine of justification may be and beyond controversy 
is, it can hardly by the utmost ingenuity be construed 
as the allembracing principle of unity. Even if it be 
supposed that “the innumerable company” of unfallen 
angels, that the whole countless host of non-human 
beings, that the possible populations of the incomputable 
systems of worlds that throng the amplitudes of bound- 
less space, may be, and I think it not improbable that 
they are, justified and confirmed in holiness and happi- 
ness beyond the contingency of a fall, through the appli- 
cation of that exhaustive merit which necessarily belongs 
to the legal obedience of an Incarnate God, consummated 


*It might be said of election that it is God’s purpose to justify. 


1 


68 Discussions or THEroLoaicaL QuEsTIONs. 


in the shame, the anguish, the blood of Gethsemane 
and Calvary — even if this be supposed, there would 
still remain the appalling case of the Devils which 
refuses to align itself with the glorious array. It cannot 
be reduced upon the principle of justification. It may 
be an actual, historical instance of moral government 
proceeding simply upon its essential principles, without 
the modification of covenant arrangements, and there- 
fore without the possibility of justification. The only 
way of avoiding this difficulty, which, to my mind, is 
conceivable, is to reduce such a case upon the principle 
of justification negatively; the result would not have 
occurred had that principle been applied. But, aside 
from the case of Adam, in which it was applied with a 
similar result, although not equally irremediable, it may 
safely be said, in general, that a principle which pro- 
fesses to be one of unity should be positively applicable 
to every historic, and, I am disposed to think, every 
fairly conceivable case. 

It would seem, then, that a principle, which would be 
central, which would collect into unity all the doctrines 


“ of theology, must be one which is generic and universally 


comprehensive. Such a principle, I humbly suggest, is 
Religion, which, as has already been explained, is the 
knowledge of God, in himself, and in his relations; a 
knowledge not merely notional and abstract, but also 
experimental and concrete — a knowledge which, in the 
case of unfallen beings, conditioned immortal holiness 
and happiness, and which, modified by the saving know- 
ledge of Christ in the case of redeemed sinners, the 
Incarnate Saviour himself pronounced to be life eternal. 


Tue DistrisuTiIon oF THEOLOGY. 69 


“This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” 
[This perhaps is sufficient; but were I required to 
speak more definitely, and signalize some one great 
truth or fact of religion as its central principle, I would, 
with hesitation, for the question is difficult, venture to 
specify Union with God; for, in the first place, it im- 
plicates in itself alike that intellectual and experimental 
knowledge of God in himself, and in his relations, which 
has been characterized as true religion; and, in the 
second place, it covers every possible case of religious 
life in every possible scheme of religion. It must, of 
necessity, be the religion of any order of moral beings 
which, as innocent or redeemed, can possibly exist. It 
has been, is, or will be the religion of every class of 
moral beings of which we have any knowledge from the 
Scriptures. All religion must begin with it, no religion 
can continue without it, and its confirmation marks the 
highest and eternal result of a religion, whether angelic 
or human, in which justification has been secured. Its 
confirmation is precisely justification, but it must have 
existed in the unfallen angels previously, and in order, 
to justification; it existed in the angels who fell, who, 
in their innocence, were either incapable of justification, 
or, if they were capable of it through a federal arrange- 
ment not revealed to us, never attained to it; restored, 
after being lost, to human sinners by regeneration, it 
precedes actual justification, is confirmed by it, devel- 
oped in adoption and sanctification, and consummated 
in glorification. Either as contingent and temporary, 
or as confirmed and eternal, it has been or is the funda- 


70 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIONS. 


mental form of all religion, and is therefore entitled to 
the distinction of a principle upon which theology may 
be reduced to unity. ] 

This comprehensive answer to the question, What is 
the principle of unity in theology ? would appear to be 
necessitated upon the suppositions, first, that theology 
is regarded in its most extensive signification, and, 
secondly, that by a principle of unity is intended one 
which is generic and inclusive of everything contained 
in theology, one the essence of which pervades every 
element which specifically contributes to its integrity. 
Theology, considered as a scientific reduction of all the 
facts of religion, cannot be satisfied in its inevitable 

quest of unity with any less ultimate principle than 
that which philosophy determinately seeks. That prin- 

y eiple is God. Any enunciation, consequently, which 
professes to embody the ultimate principle of unity is 
bound to make God its chief term, and to do so expressly 
and articulately. His Name must be the controlling 
element in the proposition. 

But while this is true, it is possible that one, con- 
templating the case from his own particular point of 
‘ view, may choose to employ the terms principle of unity, 
central principle, in a more restricted and definite sense. 
If, for example, he pleases to limit his view to the 

/ moral government of God as actually administered in 
relation to man, he may select as a central principle an 
element peculiar to that mode of moral government, and 
that special form of religion which it implies. This, 

‘it is apparent, was what Dr. Thornwell did. Holding 
that God has administered his moral government in 


~ 


Tue DistrIBuTion oF THEOLOGY. fA: 


relation to man through the two covenants of works and 
of grace, he sought a principle which is eommon to both 
covenants, and one which, as central and regulative, 
would be of the highest polemic value. He was, in some 
respects, unquestionably right. It is common, for in- 
stance, to say that atonement is the central principle of 
Christianity. He-would have said that as atonement, 
however indispensable and glorious an element of the , 
Christian scheme it is, is a means to justification as its 
end, and that therefore the latter must be regarded as 
the central element. Moreover, as atonement had no 
place in natural religion, it could not be a principle upon 
which natural religion and the gospel, or the covenants 
of works and of grace could be collected into unity. As 
justification is common to both it is competent to raise 
the question of its being the principle of unity, the cen- 
tral principle, in both. Now, if we concur with him that 
it is, we must also concede to him that it is a polemic 
principle of the utmost value. “It has the advantage,” 
as he remarks, “of cutting up by the roots false systems : 
of divinity. They cannot be reduced upon it. It 
throws off Arminianism, Pelagianism, and every the- ” 
ology which leaves life contingent, and resolves accept- 
ance into mere pardon. It throws off all such schemes 
as foreign to its own spirit.” 

But, taking this restricted view of the scope of the- 
ology, I confess that my mind leans to the adoption of 
the principle of Federal Representation rather than 
Justification, and to the designation of it as regulative 
rather than central. It is broader, less specific, inclusive 
of the means to justification, of justification itself and 


72 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QuEsTIons. 


its results, of at least equal value with it as polemic, 
and embraces adoption, which seems to me incapable of 
reduction directly upon justification, but codrdinate with 
it as a consequence of federal representation, which in 
securing the confirmation of the servant as such, at the 
same time secures the confirmation of the son as such; 
the two benefits being concurrently acquired, but not 
being identical. Dr. Thornwell regards adoption as the 
direct result of justification, the servant being, ipso 
facto, elevated to the condition of the son. The diseus- 
sion of that question must be relegated to another place, 
where it will, as a separate topic, fall to be considered. 
Meanwhile, it is a joy to me to be able to follow so 
illustrious and evangelical a thinker in the exaltation of 
the Federal Theology, and the great, cardinal doctrine 
of Justification. 


THE ULTIMATE SOURCE, RULE AND 
JUDGE OF THEOLOGY. 


INTRODUCTION. 


HIS subject has usually been discussed by theo- 


logians under the head of the Principium * 


Theologie — the Source of Theology. The treatment 


of the topic, however, broadens out so as to include the » 


Rule and the Judge of theological truth. The question, 
then, before us is in regard to the Ultimate Source, Rule, 
and Judge of Theology. The different parties who 


‘\ 


answer this question have been distributed as follows: ¥ 


The Rationalist, the Mystic, the Romanist, and the 
Orthodox Protestant. The answer of the Rationalist is, 
The source and judge of theology is Reason; that of the 
Mystic is, The source of theology is the Bible and 
Immediate Revelation to the individual; that of the 
Romanist is, The source and rule of theology is, The 
Bible and Tradition, and the judge is the Church; that 
of the Orthodox or Evangelical Protestant is, The source 
and rule of theology is the Bible, and the judge is the 
Holy Ghost speaking in the Bible. 

Tn the last analysis these parties may be reduced to 


two — the Rationalist and the Orthodox Protestant. f 


So far forth as the Mystic departs from the Scriptures, 
he must be classed with the Rationalist, for, unless he 
ean support his immediate revelations by miraculous 


74 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 
* 


evidence equal to that by which the Scriptures are sus- 
tained, they must be regarded as the creatures of his 
own mind. Every authoritative revelation of new truth 
must be proved by miracles. A professed revelation 
which is destitute of such proof is on that account lack- 
ing in authority. The Mystic, therefore, cannot show 
that he is resting on anything but reason, so far as the 
supposed revelations which give him his denomination 
are concerned, and must consequently be assigned to the 
class of Rationalists. His ultimate view of the meaning 
of the Scriptures is determined by the communications 
of truth which he professes to receive directly from God, 
and if they are in reality the products of his own intelli- 
gence, he is a Rationalist. 

The Romanist holds that the Scriptures and Tra- 
dition constitute the composite Source and Rule of 
Theology, but the authoritative Judge is the Pope as the 
official representative of the church. Now, first, if 
tradition does not exactly reproduce the deliverances 
of the apostles, it is to the extent of its divergence from 


‘ their instructions the uninspired product of the human 


mind, and to that extent differs in no material respect 
from the Rationalist’s source of theology. This must 
be the case, for it is simply absurd to suppose that 
tradition exactly accords with the utterances of the 
apostles. Secondly, unless the pope, as the final judge 
in all controversies concerning religion, is infallible 
because inspired, his decisions are the conclusions of his 
own reason, or of his own and that of his advisers com- 
bined. His claim to inspiration must needs be authenti- 
cated by unimpeachable miracles, and as that has never 


Tue PrrncreLe og Source oF Turotoey. 75 


been done, it remains that the ultimate judge is nothing 


but the reason. The Romanist must, therefore, in the _ 


last analysis, be ranked in the same class with the 


Rationalist. Further, the Mystic and the Romanist 


unite in denying the completeness of the Scriptures as v 


the source of theology and the rule of faith and duty, 
and in this regard both are rationalistic. Error brings 
strange bed-fellows together. The Mystic and the 
Romanist lie in the same bed with the Rationalist, and 
are wrapped in the same quilt. As this logical reduction 
cannot be successfully gainsaid, these parties will be 
contemplated as holding the same generic position as to 
the source, rule and judge of theology. The real issue is 
between Rationalism on the one hand, and Orthodox 
Protestantism on the other — between Reason and the 
Bible. 

The fundamental principle of Rationalism is, that 
the Natural Reason is the ultimate Source, Rule and 
Judge of religion. All who theoretically or practically 
maintain that principle, in whole or in part, may be 
reduced to the unity of a general class upon it, however 
they may be specifically distinguished from each other. 

Rationalists, considered in this wide sense, may be 
divided accordingly as they deny of a Supernatural 
Revelation contained in the Scriptures: 


I. Its Possibility — Pantheists and Intuitionalists. 
II. Its Necessity — Deists. 
III. Its Authority — Rationalists, technically so called. 
IV. Its Completeness — Mystics and Romanists. 
V. Its Actuality — Infidels of all sorts. 


76 -Disoussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Although atheists would come into the class of those 
who deny the possibility of a supernatural revelation, 
they are here left out of account, because they deny, as - 
the others do not, the possibility of religion, and beeause 
the arguments against them are usually elaborated under 
the topic of the Being of God. Those who deny the 
actuality, or fact, of a supernatural revelation are also 
‘ omitted in the discussion, for the reason that the contest 
with them is waged in the department of Apologetics, 
and in the treatises on the Evidences. The field in both 
these controversies is too wide to be embraced in a dis- 
cussion as compendious as the present. 


PAaNTHEISM. 


I. Let us consider the position of those who deny the 
possibility of a supernatural revelation. 

1. That of the Pantheist. As he rejects the person- 
ality of God, he is logically bound to deny the possibility 
of a supernatural revelation of his will. If, on the 
contrary, the personality of God be admitted, such a 
possibility must be conceded. As the point at issue is 
evidently the divine personality, arguments in its sup- 
port will be briefly presented. 

(1) The personality of God may be inferred, by 
, analogy, from ‘the evidence furnished by our own 
nature that we are personal. Between us, as finite, and 
God, as infinite, it is admitted that there can be no 
analogy. But there must be some analogy in other 
respects, or it would be impossible for us to attain to 


* The subject is also treated in The Discussions of Philosophical 
Questions. 


Tue PrinoreLe or Source oF THEotoey. 77 


any intelligent apprehension of the nature and charac- 
ter of God. It is, for example, legitimate for us to infer 
from the fact that we are intelligent, voluntary and 
moral, the fact of God’s intelligence, will and moral 
nature. Equally valid is it for us, upon the same ground 
to predicate personality of God. 


First, where the conditions of a thing exists, the thing * 


conditioned exists. We are conscious of effects which 


< 


necessarily infer our possession of individuality, intelli- ’ 


gence, affections, will and moral qualities. These are 
essential attributes of our nature which condition the 
exercise of personality. For, in the first place, these 
attributes are, as energized, passing incessantly through 
change, and the conviction of our identity as continuing 
steadfast, through all these transitions and fluctuations 
supposes the continuity, the persistent existence of one 
and the same personal self. This grounds the authori- 
tative truth of memory, and the processes of human law. 
It is not satisfactory to say that this identity is in the 
essence of the soul, for — 

Secondly, the spontaneous activities of the intellect, 
the feelings, the will and the conscience, cannot be 
confounded with that reflective activity which is condi- 
tioned upon these powers that belong to the essence of 
the soul. The spontaneous and the reflective elements 
in our nature cannot be reduced to the same category. 
If, then, the question be, What is it that reflects? the 
answer must be, The person. In no other way can we 
understand or justify the terms employed in the lan- 
guage of every civilized people — personal responsi- 
bility. 


78 Disousstons or TuEoLocicaL Questions. 


If, now, we are warranted, by analogy, in believing 

that the divine Being is possessed of intelligence, affee- 
tions, will and moral character, we are also entitled to 
hold that there is in him a personality which deliberately 
energizes through these spontaneous perfections of his 
essence. In no other way can we ascribe freedom of 
action to God. The choice between two acts to either of 
which — creating or not creating, for example — his 
holy spontaneity may be directed can only be regarded 
as determined upon by his personal will. 
(2) We have the conscious conviction of our per- 
sonality. This is trustworthy, or our nature deceives 
us. If our nature deceives us, God, according to the 
pantheistic hypothesis, is deceptive, since, upon that 
hypothesis, we are manifestations of God. And, further, 
if, according to the pantheist, God comes to conscious- 
ness in man, his consciousness would deceive himself. 

But if it be admitted that we are personal, two sup- 
positions emerge: Either we were created as personal, 
or we are evolved from the substance of God as personal. 
The former supposition is denied by the pantheist. He 
is, therefore, shut up to the latter. The formidable 
question then arises, How could personality be evolved 
' from an impersonal substance? The thing evolved must 
be potentially contained in the thing evolving. A contra- 
diction emerges, for personality and impersonality are 
contradictories. If the ground be taken, that such a 
conclusion might be warranted upon the supposition of 
a strict process of evolution, but not upon that of pro- 
gression, it is held that, in some way, God as impersonal 
becomes personal in man. But here again a contradic 


Tuer Princrete or Source or Turotogy. 79 


tion is confronted, for it is maintained that God is 
personal and impersonal at one and the same time ; 
unless it be allowed that in becoming personal, he ceases 
to be an impersonal substance. But that cannot possibly 
relieve the difficulty, since he would, upon the supposi- 
tion, change his fundamental nature. He would die as 
the impersonal God in order to become the personal man. 
The thing is absurd. If it be alleged that the substance 
only changes its manifestations, the answer is two-fold: 
first, the change is from a manifestation to one which 
is contradictory to it; secondly, that an infinite mani- 
festation is sacrificed and a finite supervenes upon its 
loss. What progression there would be in such a process 


of becoming, it may safely be left to the astuteness of - 


the pantheist to show. Granted that we are persons, and 
it follows from the premises of the pantheist himself 
that God must be personal. 


(3) If we are personal and God is not, it follows that, | 


to the extent of his possession of personality, man is 
greater than God — the finite human manifestation of 
the infinite substance greater than the infinite substance 
itself. God, according to the pantheist, comes to con- 
sciousness in man. Man, then, is the crown of the divine 
development. An infinite and eternal Being reaches the 
climax of its progression in a finite and ephemeral mani- 
festation, a little, fleeting, but, wonderful to say, con- 
scious, personal, shadow, which to-day is and to-morrow 
vanishes away. Were anything necessary to aggravate 
this stupendous contradiction, it would consist in man’s 
consciousness of his pollution. The soul sickens at the 
thought that anything called by the name of Deity 


~ 


~ 


«~ 


80 Discussions or THEoLoaicaL Questions. 


should come to such a consciousness as that—a econ- 
sciousness of shame in the presence of his fellow- 
manifestations, were he manifested to them! 

(4) When men die, there is, according to the pan- 
theist, a re-absorption of their souls into the universal 
substance. Now, either they are reabsorbed as personal 
or not. If as personal, God involves the aggregate of 
re-absorbed personalities, and, of course, to that extent, 
is personal; he is partly personal and partly impersonal, 
which is a contradiction. Or, he becomes personal, 
although not originally personal. He changes, then, the 
intrinsic mode of his infinite and eternal being. The 
infinite changes in consequence of finite, the eternal in 
consequence of temporal, additions. This is both con- 
tradictory and absurd. 

If souls are re-absorbed as.impersonal, it follows, first, 
that the attribute of personality, once possessed, is either 
destroyed or not. If destroyed, a part of the manifesta- 
tion of the infinite substance is destroyed, and that in 
which it becomes conscious — its climax of development. 
And then it falls back to an unconscious condition, which 
is lower than a previous conscious one; whence it fol- 
lows that the infinite substance not only changes con- 
tinually, but changes for the worse. It undergoes 
perpetual degradation. Second, that the human soul 
loses the grand attribute of personality, and thus in 
being re-absorbed into the divine substance deteriorates, 
instead of advancing in dignity. The closer its union 
with God, the meaner it becomes. It loses by the inti- 
macy. It was nobler in being a mere manifestation of 
the divine substance than in being involved in it. 


THE PrinciPLe or Source oF THEOLOGY. 81 


If, on the other hand, personality is not destroyed in 
the re-absorption of the soul as impersonal, then, first, 
an attribute is separated from its substance, and con- 
tinues to exist apart from it, which is incredible, since 
it contradicts the fundamental law of belief in the 
relation of property to substance; secondly, myriads 
upon myriads of personalities thus exist independently 
of the souls to which they belonged. They roam through 
the immense void of space crying for their lost sub- 
stances, widowed wanderers mourning their desolate and 
shelterless estate, and lamenting that they are qualified 
to do duty to substances, but can find no substances to 
qualify. 

(5) On the supposition that God is a cause, then, , 
first, a blind, impersonal cause he must be, according 
to the fundamental assumption of the pantheist. How 
such a cause can originate personal causes it is hard to ” 
imagine. How a blind cause ean see tc produce seeing 
causes, when he himself cannot see, this is a great 
marvel. Secondly, when our souls, as fleeting phenom- _ 
ena, are re-absorbed into God, they lose their attribute 
of intelligent causality. From seeing they become blind, 
and lose their free intelligence in being admitted to 
nearness with God. Further, as the human causes were 
but divine causes, God puts out his own eyes in putting 
out the eyes of the human causes which manifest 
him. 

(6) We are conscious of the sense of duty, the con- / 
viction of moral obligation. This necessarily infers a 
personal law-giver, ruler and judge, by whose will we 
are obliged, by whose law we are bound, and to the 

6 


82 Discussions or TuHEoLocicaL Questions. 


sanctions of whose government we are amenable. To 


. say that we are responsible to an impersonal substance 


_ 


is nonsense. And if we are but the manifestations of 
such a substance the measures of right and wrong are 
confounded, the distinction between duty and crime 
obliterated. The paradox is intolerable. Our moral 
nature thunders from its lowest depths a witness for a 
personal God. 

(7) The same kind of argument is furnished by our 
religious nature. The sense of dependence, the con- 
scious need of help, and the esthetical perception of the 
beautiful, the lovely, the glorious conduct by a necessary 
inference to a personal being who is the recipient of 
worship. To talk of worshipping any other kind of 
being is absurd; to ery, O beautiful, glorious Imper- 
sonal Substance, we adore and love it! O kind Imper- 
sonal Substance, we thank it for all its goodness! O 
merciful Impersonal Substance, we confess to it our 
sins and implore its forgiveness! O almighty and 
pitiful Impersonal Substance, we beseech it to succor 
us amidst the stormy vicissitudes of life, and in the 
dreadful crisis of death! As well worship gravitation 
or a thunder-bolt. 

(8) The universal employment in human language of 
the personal pronouns, I, thou, he proves the universal 
conviction of our personality. Now, either God is held 
to continue impersonal, or to become personal in man. 
If the former, as we are phenomenal manifestations of 
God, his manifestations say, I, thou, he, while the 
impersonal substance is incapable of such language. If 
the latter, as we are manifestations of God, he says, I, 


Tue Principe or Source or THEOLOGY. 83 


thou, he, to himself. The pantheist can elect either 
horn, and be welcome to it. 

This and the immediately succeeding argument 
directly rebut the pantheistic position, and at the same 
time reénforce the proofs derived from consciousness of 
the personality of God. 

(9) It will seareely be denied that human law is a / 
fact. That is founded upon the idea of personal rights. 
Again the dilemma is invoked: either God continues 
impersonal, or he comes to conscious personality in man. 
If the former, as we are manifestations of God, his 
manifestations are vested with personal rights while as 
the impersonal substance he is unsusceptible of them. 
If the latter, as we are manifestations of God, he has 
personal conflicts with himself at law, and in innu- 
merable cases is hanged. And to say the truth, such a 
God as the pantheist babbles about would deserve to 
be hanged. 

(10) The fact of creation proves the personality of y 
God. The argument deserves an expansion which can- 
not here be given. Creation is postulated by the neces- 
sary progress of our reason proceeding in accordance 
with the law of causality. An extra-mundane, personal 
Creator is demanded. Add to this the special faith- 
judgment elicited, by the conditions of experience fur- 
nished in consciousness, from the fundamental law of 
belief in an infinite and perfect being, and the case is 

‘complete. 

If these considerations have availed to prove the per- 
sonality of God, they establish the possibility of a super- ° 
natural revelation of his will. As personal he can afford 


< 


84 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


to other persons than himself a revelation of his will, 
and as infinite he can make that revelation supernatural. 


INTUITIONALISM. 


2. The position of the intuitionalist, of the school of 
Schleiermacher and Morell. It denies the possibility of 
a supernatural revelation a parte hominis: man is not 
receptive of such a revelation. 

It is assumed in this theory that revelation is neces- 
sarily subjective; from the nature of the case it is 
internal to the mind. It is a mode of the human intelli- 
gence, a subjective faculty, the very office of which is to 
apprehend religious truth. It is a part of man’s natural 
constitution. Once given, as inlaid in the nature of the 
soul, it is absurd to say that it can be again given. 
Religious truth is apprehended by this intuitional fac- 
ulty, just as outward phenomena are apprehended by 
external perception. It gazes upon religious truth, as 
brought directly into contact with it, and standing face 
to face with it. To furnish, therefore, an objective, 
logical system of such truth, an external, authoritative 
theology, for reception by the mind is to adopt a proce- 
dure utterly foreign to the constitution of the mind 
itself. It would be like describing colors, or giving 
instruction in the science of optics to a blind man. 

It must not be supposed that the abettors of this 
theory employ the term intuition in the sense in which 
' it is often, but somewhat inaccurately used, of an origi- 
nal principle, a fundamental a priori law of thought or 
belief, such as the law of space, of time, of causality, and 
the like. In this sense it is employed by Dr. MeCosh in 


Tue Princrete or Source or TuEoLoay. 85 


his work on The Intuitions of the Mind. It is used in 


the strict sense of immediate, presentative knowledge, ¥ 


that in which Dr. Mansel contends that it ought to be 
taken. The intuition of the advocates of this theory is 
the consciousness — the immediate, presentative know- 
ledge, of original principles of the soul, of fundamental, 
abstract realities and truths, esthetic, moral and reli- 
gious. 


Revelation, accordingly, is the faculty of intuition , 


having specific relation to religious “verities.” They 
are presented to it, are now and here present to it, and 
it is its office to take immediate knowledge of them. It 
is consciousness considered as specially related to the 
truths and facts of religion. Both the faculty, and the 
objects about which it is concerned, are subjective. 

This intuitive faculty is moved to exercise by the 
religious feelings, and when those feelings are intensified 
to an extraordinary degree of energy, they are inspira- 
tion. This elevated state of the religious feelings 
stimulates the faculty of revelation to its highest exer- 
cise. The eye of intuition is wide open, and looks with 
clear and undimmed gaze upon the verities of religion. 

The objective facts of the gospel history are not to 


be classed, indeed, ex hypothesi, cannot be classed, ¥ 


among the truths which are the objects of the revealing 
faculty. They neither are such truths nor convey them. 
What, then, are they? They are circumstantial condi- 
tions upon which this inspiration is kindled into extra- 
ordinary fervor, conditions upon which, in other words, 
the pious feelings are developed into a high degree of 
intensity. 


86 Discussions or TuEoLocicaL Questions. 


Theology, accordingly, is simply the peal of the 
, employment of the organ of reflection upon the truths 
and facts given by the intuitional faculty. It is a digest 
of truth by the “reflective consciousness” — upon 
the data of the “intuitional consciousness.” From this 
it follows that it must be merely a natural human 
product. It can be constructed by man alone. God 
cannot produce it for him, either immediately, or 
through the medium of human teachers commissioned to 
discharge that office. There can be, from the nature of 
the case, no “book-revelation.”” The Bible, as an exter- 
nal, authoritative revelation of God’s will, or of religious 
truth, is an impossibility. Revelation is natural, and, 
consequently, a supernatural revelation is to be dis- 
missed as lying beyond the range of possibility. A 
divine theology, contradistinguished to a human, is out 
of the question. Such is a succinct account of this 
intuitionalist theory, which denies, upon grounds of its 
own, the possibility of supernatural revelation; and in 
regard to it I proceed briefly to remark: 

(1) The theory is a part of the semi-pantheistic 
system of Schleiermacher, and, imported from Germany, 
the home of erratic speculation in philosophy and the- 
ology, it has been naturalized in our language by such 
attractive, though mischievous, writers as Morell. It 
is both infidel and arrogant: infidel, because it essays 
to sweep away the Bible as an authoritative revelation, 
and, of course, along with it the scheme of Christianity 
as the only ground of a sinner’s hopes; arrogant, because 
it declares it impossible for an omnipotent God to make 
known his will to man, the creature of his power, except 


Tuer PRINCIPLE og Source oF THEoLocy. 87 


through the subjective activity of the human faculties — 
a position which was not assumed by the English deists 
themselves. It is, moreover, unscientific and unphilo- 
sophical: unscientific, because it takes no account, worth 
mentioning, of the palpable fact of sin, and thus begins ‘ 
by contradicting consciousness; unphilosophical, be- 
cause it declines to derive from that obtrusive and 
gigantic fact the necessary inferences which spring from 
its existence. It neither notes the presence of sin as a 
cause, nor the effects which, upon the supposition of its 
existence, it must be expected to produce upon the 
religious nature, and upon the reflective attempt to 
reduce the spontaneous elements of that nature into the 
form of a theological system. 

The theory affirms that the “intuitional consciousness” 
puts us into cognitive possession of the moral, the wxs-— 
thetical, and the religious feelings. It must, therefore, 
be granted that it informs us of the moral feeling of 
guilt, as none but a madman would deny the fact of 
personal sin. It also gives us the knowledge of God as 
a ruler and judge. Now the question being, how we 
may escape the punishment due to guilt, what possible . 
light could the intuitional consciousness afford us in 
regard to that profoundly interesting inquiry? It is 
too plain to require argument that a purely subjective 
revelation confined to the contents of consciousness is 
one which could give us no relief in our moral extremity. 
It would be dumb concerning the awfully important 
questions that arise in relation to our future destiny. 
And if this be so, it is obvious that no subjective revela- 
tion would render impossible an objective revelation 


< 


88 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


from God touching a way of deliverance from guilt and 
punishment. : 

(2) This theory is extravagant in the account which it 
gives of the scope of the intuitional faculty, and aseribes 
to it powers which it does not possess. It has been 
remarked already that the intuition of this theory is 
consciousness, or immediate knowledge. That this con- 
struction is correct is shown by the fact that Morell 
distributes the cognitive powers into the sensational con- 
sciousness, the perceptive consciousness, the logical con- 
sciousness, and the intuitional consciousness. Conscious- 
ness is generic, and under it is included intuition as one 
of its species. Of course, then, the essence of conscious- 
ness is included in intuition. It is consciousness in 
special relation to certain truths and feelings. The 
truths of religion are objects of this consciousness. Now 
it is admitted that the religious feelings are objects of 
consciousness, but the question would occur, whether the 
laws of morality and of esthetics are directly gazed upon 
in consciousness, and it would be difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to show that they are. If they are not, some of 
the mental facts which lie at the very root of religion 
would, strictly speaking, lie beyond the scope of the 
religious consciousness. But apart from that question, 
let us direct our attention to a truth which must be 
confessed as fundamental to all religion — namely, the 
existence of God. Is God an object of the intuitional 
consciousness? Have we immediate knowledge of him ? 
Do we gaze upon the Infinite One presentatively given, 
as face to face with us? If so, we can, without drawing 
our information from the Bible, describe him, as we can 


THE PRINCIPLE on Source oF THEOLOGY. 89 


every object of which we are conscious. To take that 
ground would be preposterous. In this signal, vital 
particular, therefore, the theory breaks down which 
represents the truths of religion as all immediately and 
presentatively revealed to the faculty of intuition. 

It may be said that this is quibbling; that it makes 
no practical difference whether we immediately know 


God in consciousness, or mediately know him by a neces- , 


sary inference from the data of consciousness, on the 
ground that a logical inference is of equal validity with 
the data from which it is derived. The result is the 
same, This vital truth of religion is furnished by our 
own subjective constitution, and renders an external 
revelation impossible. To this the answer is two-fold: 
First, the concession would be fatal to the consistency of 
a theory which refers all the truths of religion to the 
apprehensions of intuition. Intuition never infers any- 
thing. It sees its objects, and needs no inference that 
they exist. To admit, consequently, that the existence 


of God is a matter of inference, would be to sacrifice the ” 
intuitional theory of religion. Secondly, while con-_ 
sciousness makes no mistakes, the inferences which are | 


actually derived from its data are often deceptive. 
Might it not happen that an inference from them to the 
existence of God, as a being so and so qualified, would 
be false? In order to answer that question, it is neces- 


sary to remove altogether the influence of the Bible, , 


whether wittingly or unwittingly experienced, and refer 
to a condition of religious thought absolutely unaffected 
by it. Let us take the case of the best Greek philoso- 


x 


phers. They had the intuitional and the logical faculties 


“ 


90 Discussions or THEoLogicaL Questions. 


, in as great perfection as perhaps was ever attained. 


What kind of God did they infer from the facts of con- 
sciousness? If inspiration, as held by the chureh, be 
denied, and it is denied in this theory, what placed the 
apostles on a higher vantage-ground than these powerful 
thinkers? Would the advocates of this theory be satis- 
fied with the deity of the Greek philosophers? If not, 
they give up the question. If they would be, they 
deserve to be ranked as of equal authority with Plato 
and Aristotle in religion. With Hume they would place 
Paganism and Christianity upon the same foot, and 
might be safely left to enjoy the company they elect. 
These men impose upon themselves and upon those who 
are fascinated by their speculations. They use the light 
they get from the Scriptures at the same time that they 
endeavor to destroy their authority. It is evident that, 
without a supernatural revelation, no just apprehension 
of God can be reached, and, therefore, no competent 
account of religion can be given. It is not intended to 
deny that true inferences ought to be drawn from the 
facts of consciousness in regard to the nature of God. 
That is admitted. What is denied is that, apart from a 
supernatural revelation, such inferences ever are 
drawn. 

But to return to the theory itself. It does not profess 
to deal with inferences, however correct, from the facts 


‘ given in the intuitional consciousness, but solely with 


the facts themselves; and to say that we have direct 
intuitions of God, of infinity, of the essence of our own 
souls, of the essence of anything, is infinitely absurd. 
This intuition, to which powers so marvellous are at- 


Ture PrincriPLe or Source or THEOLOGY. 91 


tributed, like the frog in the fable, bursts from its self- 
inflation. 
(3) A construction of a theology of the religious 


intuitions and feelings must be accomplished by the ' 


thinking faculty according to logical method. It were 
absurd to suppose that the intuitions or the feelings 
could perform such an office. One does not reflect by 
intuition or by feeling. But if man can do this, why 
may not God? It may be replied that God cannot have 
man’s intuitions or feelings. Very true; but he has a 
perfect intuition of man’s intuitions and feelings. Is 
he not omniscient? But if he know them, why cannot 
he deliver a theology which involves an account of the 
religious truths and the facts of our nature? He is not 
dependent upon reasoning to know, but he who made us 
to reason can reason himself. He is not indebted to 


logic like ours in order to form a systematized statement « 


of truth, but what hinders his employment of logic, so 
as to teach us truth in a systematic form? Admit his 
perfect knowledge of our consciousness, and all its con- 
tents, the experience of sin excluded, and there is no 
difficulty in the supposition of his furnishing a theology 
containing an exposition of the facts of our religious 
nature. 

Moreover, why cannot God give descriptions of un- 
perceived realities, realities which are out of our con- 
sciousness, which can be apprehended by faith? If this 
may be done by the orator, the poet, the painter, why 
not by him who creates the gifts of oratory, poetry and 
painting? And if from the facts given by consciousness 
we are capable of deriving good and necessary infer- 


~< 


- 
92 Discussions or TuEoLoaicat Questions. 


ences to other truths, why cannot God give us the 
inferences in the shape of direct statements? A denial 
could only be grounded in pantheism or atheism. The 
deist would never dream of making it. 

Testimony, it must be admitted, adds to the materials 


* of our knowledge. Otherwise we would be restricted 


to our own individual perception, internal and external. 
History would be fable. Is a personal God confessed 
by the intuitionalist, and will he deny that God may 
become a witness tous? If he deny the personality of 
God, he is pro tanto a pantheist. If he admit it, he must 


, concede the possibility of a personal God bearing wit- 


ness to us as persons. This is what God actually does 
in the Scriptures. The facts of creation, and others 
belonging to the scheme of natural religion, and the 
contents of the gospel, are made known to us by his 
testimony — the first class as re-published from nature, 
the second as supernatural and redemptive. If to this 
it be objected that the facts of the gospel history are 
testified to by the evangelists as human witnesses, the 
answer is sufficient, that the relation of those facts to the 
salvation of men lay entirely beyond the competency of 
man’s testimony, and, from the nature cf the case, must 
be referred to God’s. If the bearing of the testimony 
upon the salvation of men be refused, the objector places 
himself in the ranks of naked infidelity. 

(4) Not only does God by his testimony add to the 
materials of our knowledge, but, so far as the matter 
furnished is transcendent, the Holy Spirit, in the act 
of regeneration, also gives the organ by which we appre- 
hend it. He imparts the spiritual eye to see spiritual 


Tue PrincrePte ok Source oF THEOLOGY. 93 


realities. It is cheerfully conceded that revelation gives | 


no ultimate laws of thought or belief, no new original 


powers. It brings new truth into relation to these . 


original elements of the human soul. Faith, love and 


hope, for example, are not created by it, or by the 


supernatural agency which accompanies and enforces it. 
But by the regenerating grace of the Holy Ghost these 


original powers are renewed, are born again, and vital- , 


_ ized by a principle of spiritual life which was lost by 
the fall of man into sin, and is restored by redemption. 
The new truths revealed are matched by new receptivi- 
ties. Spiritual as they are, and lying beyond the grasp 
of the merely natural powers, they are capable of being 
apprehended by those powers into which a spiritual life 
has been introduced, and upon which, consequently, 
spiritual capacities have been superinduced. Faith, 
thus regenerated, becomes the intuition of the spiritual, 
supernatural, transcendent facts of redemption. The 
truths revealed, the light in which they are seen, and 
the eye which sees them are all adapted to each other, 
and they all, so far as they are redemptive, lie beyond 
the range of the natural intuitions. To say that this 
eannot be is to deny the truth of the Scriptures, admitted 
by the intuitionalist to have been the product of exalted 
piety, and to tie the hands of an Almighty God. 

(5) The intuitionalist allows the possibility of truth 
being communicated by teaching. Now, either by teach- 


x 


< 


ing he means the re-production of the intuitions expe- , 


rienced by the teacher and the actual presentation of 
them to the learner, or the employment of the logical 
faculty and the representation of truth by means of 


~ 


- 


94 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


verbal signs which are symbolic of thought. If he 
mean the former, he contends for a sheer impossibility. 
No teacher can create the objects of intuition and bring 
them into contact with the consciousness of the disciple ; 
nor can he impart the organ of intuition in case of its 
absence or quicken it into sensibility in ease it is obtuse. 
If he mean the latter — and if he does he is inconsistent 
with himself — one may well crave to know why the 
supreme intelligence cannot discharge an office which is 
competent to the limited powers of man. As the latter 
supposition is clearly not that which is made by this 
intuitional theory, it is impossible to see how the admis- 
sion of any teaching at all-in a proper sense can be 
justified by it. It may be conceivable that an’ indi- 
vidual may in some way construe to himself his own 
intuitions and feelings, but it passes comprehension how 
he could communicate the results of his reflections to 
others without a logical process, and the representative 
signs of language. The command given in the Serip- 
tures to teach all nations, to go into all the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature, might in some 
extraordinary way be intelligible to the elevated piety 
and illumination of the intuitionalist, but it would cer- 
tainly be unmeaning jargon to the common sense of 
ordinary mortals. 

(6) The denial that an objective, supernatural revela- 
tion, embodying a divine theology, is possible involves 
the assumption that the subjective revelation contended 
for in this theory is perfect, and cannot be even supple- 
mented. That implies that a conscious sinner is pos- 


/ sessed of a religion sufficient for all his wants, a religion 


?. 


z 


Tue Princier® or Source or THEonoey. 95 


which he derives from his own sinful heart, as a spider 
spins his web out of his own bowels. Denying, as the 
theory does, any supernatural change in the soul effected 
by regeneration, it provides only for an illumination 
which is supposed to clarify the intuitions of natural 
truth, and stimulate the feelings springing from a 
natural religiousness. As water cannot rise higher than 
its source, the piety which is assumed to be engendered 
by this illumination could not transcend the radical cor- 
ruption of the soul. There must be a degree of imper- 
fection existing in the state of the religious feelings, 
which will necessarily impart a corresponding imper- 
fection to the theology which is thought out by the 
“Teflective consciousness.” Two fatal consequences flow 
from the theory: First, there can be no ideal standard 
of religious truth, no perfect theological norm, con- “ 
formity to which the soul might put forth a nisus to 
attain; secondly, there could be no principles of holiness 
out of which a pure and undefiled religion might be 
developed. The sinner could no more rise above sin 
than an eagle could soar above the atmosphere. The 
vicarious atonement of Christ and the renewing grace 
of the Holy Ghost being alike rejected, the fancied “ 
illumination of the intuitionalist could never avail to 
the removal of guilt, the stain of pollution, or the power 
of depravity. The light issuing from law which has 
been broken, like that which glares upon the criminal 
doomed to be burnt from the fagots surrounding the 
stake, serves only to reveal the certain condemnation of 
the transgressor. In short, the theory, although paying 
a feigned obeisance to Christianity and abusively em- 


96 Discussions or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


ploying its terms, takes no account of the judicial conse- 
quences of sin, and, therefore, makes no provision for 
redemption. It descants in pompous phraseology upon 
the insertion, through the incarnation, of a Christic 
principle into humanity, corresponding to the infusion 
/ through creation of a divine principle into the world, 
and prates of an organic development of the life of the 
church as proceeding from this evolutionary germ, but 
sinks out of view the personal offices of Christ, tramples 
under foot the blood of expiation, and treats with con- 
tempt the saving functions of the Holy Ghost. It is a 
misrepresentation of the present condition of man, and 
a mockery of his eternal hopes. It gives him a stone for 
bread, and a scorpion for an egg. 

(7) The last consideration — and it is decisive — 
which will be urged against this theory is, that it reduces 
to naught the miraculous evidence by which the plenary 
inspiration of the Scriptures, as an objective, super- 
natural revelation, is supported. Nothing will now be 
said upon this point, as it comes to be noticed in another 
place. 

Deis. 

II. Let us next contemplate briefly the position of 
those who deny the necessity of a supernatural reve- 
lation. This was maintained especially by the English 
deists. 

1. The State of the Question. In the controversy 
which occurred between the English deists and the 
apologists for a supernatural revelation, the former took 
two grounds: First, that a new revelation is not neces- 
sary, because men already have adequate light in regard 


Tue PrRiIncIPLE or SourcE oF THEoLogy. 97 


to the sheme of natural religion; and, secondly, that 
natural religion is sufficient for all the moral and 
religious ends of man’s being. The question, accord- 
ingly, which was mainly debated was the necessity of a 
new, supernatural revelation to republish and reénforce 
the articles of natural religion. Able as were the dis- 
cussions of the apologists for revelation, and valuable 
as is the body of apologetical literature which was 
created by the great controversy, a mistake was made. 
The real, the all-important question to which attention 


should have been, although not exclusively, yet princi- ' 


pally, directed, was the Necessity of the Gospel. It 


need hardly be said that revelation is wider in its scope * 


than the gospel. The scheme of natural religion, re- 
vealed to man at first, and manifestly obscured by sin, 
might have been revealed afresh, without the announce- 
ment of a remedial system by which the subjects of that 
first religion might be recovered from the disastrous 
results of disobedience. Evidently, therefore, the press- 
ing inquiry was, not whether a new revelation of natural 
religion was necessary, but whether the communication 
of a scheme of redemption was needed. Much of valu- 
able truth was elicited by the debate, but that which 
was of the greatest importance was too much overlooked. 

“The controversy,” well observes Dr. Thornwell, “has 
been, in many instances, so conducted with the deists 
as to convey the impression that the doctrines of nature 
were sufficient to constitute the complete religion of a 
sinner; the sole point in dispute being the competency 
of reason to discover those doctrines without super- 


natural aid. We are represented as creatures destined 
7 


~~ 


<. 


98 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


for another life, and needing information in reference 
to its character and its connection with the present, 
which cannot be derived from the light of nature. In 
this view Christianity is no new religion; it is only a 
new publication of that which subsisted from the begin- 
ning of our race. It is a revelation, strictly and properly 
so called, and nothing more; and its whole relation to 
us is exhausted when we receive and submit to it as a 
divine teacher. We are ignorant, for example, of a 
future life; or if we have, from the operations of con- 
science or the spontaneous desires of the soul, vague 
convictions or indistinct impressions of continued exist- 
ence in another state or among other scenes, the evidence 
is too feeble and shadowy to furnish the grounds of a 
steady belief. Christianity, accordingly, relieves our 
blindness and brings life and immortality to light. The 
apprehensions of nature it reduces to realities, its vague 
impressions to the certainty of facts. So, again, without 
revelation we are represented as uncertain whether our 
conduct here shall affect our destinies hereafter, or what 
is the nature of the connection which subsists between 
the present and the future. Christianity comes to our 
assistance and teaches us that this present world is a 
school for eternity; and that according to our characters 
and conduct here will be our destiny hereafter. This 
is the method in which the apologists for Christianity 
too often conducted the argument with the deists.” * 
There are two great offices which a supernatural reve- 
lation is needed to accomplish: First, to re-publish, 
correct and interpret natural religion; secondly and 
1 Goll. Writings, Vol. II., pp. 61, 62. 


Tue PrincrpLe or Source or Tuxonocy. 99 


chiefly, to create the truths of evangelical or redemptive 
religion, and to make known to a fallen, corrupt, ruined 
race a method of recovery and salvation. Is such a reve- 
lation necessary? The deist denies, the Christian 
affirms. 
2. Proofs of the necessity of a supernatural revela- 
tion. 
(1) Natural religion needs to be re-published, and 
cleared of misconceptions; its original office to be ex- 
pounded and its present relations distinctly interpreted. 
The argument upon this point has been so fully pre- 
sented by the opponents of deism that only a few con- 
siderations will be here submitted. 


First. The fact of sin enforces this necessity. Indi- , 


vidual consciousness and a world-wide observation prove 
the universal prevalence of sin. He who denies this puts 
himself outside the pale of the discussion, He rejects 
the most patent facts. But if the existence of sin is 
admitted, it needs no argument to prove what all obser- 
vation establishes — that the transgressor of law is not 
prepared to judge impartially concerning the principles 
and measures of the scheme of government under which 
he is an offender. His views of that government will 
necessarily be partial and unfair. The administration 
of no law, human or divine, could be entrusted to erimi- 
nals. Neither could its exposition be left tothem. Self- 
interest would, of course, vitiate and warp the judgment. 
If men are offenders against the moral government of 
God as naturally revealed — and the deist concedes the 
existence of such a government — it follows that any 
Just conceptions of it must proceed from a revelation 


ia 


= 


100 Drscussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


afforded by God himself. The transgressor must have 
such a revelation, or remain in the ignorance accruing 
from sin, an ignorance elected by a will guided by the 
prejudiced views of the understanding, and influenced 
by the corrupt passions of the heart. It is folly to talk 
of a sinner’s possession of a competent knowledge of 
natural religion, or even of any serious effort on his part 
to attain it. Speculation in regard to it is one thing, the 
adoption of it as a practical guide of life is another; 
and even the philosophical speculations of a Socrates 
were inadequate. Yet he suffered death because his 
doctrine made some theoretical approach to mono- 
theism. 

This suggests the obvious consideration that the ap- 
peal upon this question must be taken to those who did 
not possess a professed supernatural revelation. The 
creed, for example, of Lord Herbert of Cherbury cannot 
be assumed as a criterion. It affords no proper gauge 
of the ability of mere unassisted reason to reach a com- 
petent knowledge of the articles of natural religion. It 
was impossible for him to place himself in the position 
of a pagan philosopher. It was as impossible for him 
to have refused to inhale the atmosphere as to have 
resisted the absorption of scriptural ideas. By no 


/ mental effort could he have vacated his mind of the con- 


ceptions imparted by the Bible. If he never read it, his 
cook or his gardener would in conversation have com- 
municated to him some of its doctrines. But if the 
deist allow the appeal to either the ancient pagan or the 
modern heathen world, he must acknowledge that he 
has clearer notions of God, of moral government and 


Tue Principe or Source or THErotocy. 101 


of the immortality of the soul than were ever attained by 
Soerates or Cicero, or are now enjoyed by the followers 
of Buddha or Confucius. He will scarcely refer the 
difference to his superior intelligence. What can cause 
it but the insensible influence of the Scriptures? The 
Bible must be thought away, or there is no possibility of 
settling the question. Think away the Bible, and the 
question is settled: there is no competent knowledge ’ 
attainable of natural religion without a supernatural 
revelation. Hence the necessity of such a revelation, 
so far as that religion is concerned. 

Secondly. In consequence of the disordered moral 
condition of the race, there could not be any fixed and ” 
certain standard of natural religion. There is no com- 
mon authority by which its articles could be determined. 
Tf it be replied that reason, in its fundamental prin- 
ciples, supplies such a norm, the plea is rebutted by at 
least two considerations: that reason itself has suffered 
from the influence of sin, and that no common agreement, 
has ever been arrived at in regard to the question, What 
is natural religion? Facts verify the antecedent pre- 
sumption that no authoritative and common standard 
can be secured. 

Thirdly. These considerations are enhanced by the 
intimations of nature itself that the original scheme of . 
natural religion has been mutilated, that some of the — 
elements which at first composed it have been lost to 
reason. If there be any ground, although only slight, 
for this supposition, it would certainly be desirable that 
a new and trustworthy publication of the scheme in its 
integrity should be furnished to mankind. It can hardly 


102 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


be disputed, on anything like valid grounds, that men 
are born with a disordered moral constitution. The 
Pelagian hypothesis cannot relieve itself of the fatal 
objection that the universal determination of men in 
the direction of sin, so absolutely universal that there 
never has been a single exception to the rule, is sufficient 
to prove that a positive proclivity to a wrong moral 
development is congenital. Now, if this were the first 
natural condition of man, if this fact could not be as- 
signed to a cause preceding birth, reason would seem 


, to be entitled to conclude that the present moral status 


« 


of the race is regular and constitutional. Man is only 
obeying his nature. What is denominated sin could not 
be moral disorder; it would be the fruit of man’s 
connate principles. How there could be a question in 
regard to any religion whatsoever, it is difficult to con- 
ceive. 

Reason, however, itself suggests, upon the principles 
of the deist, that this could not, under the administration 
of a just and benevolent Creator, have been the original 
condition of man. It suggests that he began his exist- 
ence in rectitude; and then the presumption is a power- 
ful one, that as a fall from that pristine estate must 
have occurred, and man’s moral condition must have 
been deranged by a revolutionary force, he lost, in some 
degree at least, his grasp of the elements of that original 
scheme of religion with which he was acquainted in 
innocence. This presumption of reason is too strong to 
be treated with contempt. It is sufficient to create a 
necessity for a new publication of natural religion. 
What guarantee is there that, in his present condition 


Tue PrincieLe or Source oF THEOLOGY. 10% 


in which he is densely ignorant of his first estate and of 
the lapse from it which he has palpably undergone, his 
attempts reflectively to construct a religion which will 
correspond with that he possessed at creation will meet 
with even tolerable success? Does not reason itself 
intimate the need of a supernatural revelation that will 
clear up the thick darkness of the problem, and pour 
light upon that prehistoric condition of the race back 
to which not even fragmentary annals or straggling 
iraditions conduct ? 

Fourthly. If what has thus far been advanced have 


any foundation in truth, it would follow that a repub- ; 


lication of natural religion, enforcing it and interpreting 
its relations, is necessary as a preparative for a remedial 
scheme: a scheme proposing deliverance from the con- 
sequences which an infraction of the requirements of 
natural religion as one of law entails. It must be ad- 
mitted that the more clearly that religion is made known 
the more certainly are its retributive sanctions disclosed. 
In this view of the matier it is hard to see why any 


= 


attempt should be instituted by the deist to recover it, . 


or to formulate its provisions again. The effort is 
suicidal. He kindles the fire that consumes him. But 
the republication and reénforcement of that religion of 
law by God himself ought to be regarded as an act of 
merey. Convicted of guilt for past transgressions of its 
commands, and despairing of success in complying with 
its exactions in the future, men are prepared to welcome 
a scheme which promises deliverance from condemnation 
and the conferment of everlasting happiness. Natural 
religion supernaturally revealed becomes propedentic 


~. 


104 Drscusstons or TuxroLocicaL Questions. 


to redemption. Its republication is necessary in order 
to prepare the way for the gospel. 

(2) A supernatural revelation is necessary to create 
the truths of evangelical and redemptive religion — to 
make known to a fallen, corrupt, ruined race of sinners 
a method of recovery and salvation. 

First. This is proved by the insufficiency of natural 


' religion, or of any other known religion except Ohris- 


tianity, to meet the facts, or relieve the wants, of the 
human race, 

What are the facts ? 

In the first place, every individual is conscious of sin 
and guilt, and needs deliverance from them. 

In the second place, the fact is evident to observation 
that the moral condition of the race is one of sin and 
ruin. To deny these facts is not to reason, but to rave. 

In the third place, self-culture is utterly powerless 


~ to deliver men from the pressure of these facts and their 


consequent needs. The history of asceticism proves that 
the most earnest efforts to evolve a religion from within 
leads only to a wretched servitude to legalism, which 
macerates the body and tortures the soul. Instead of 
relieving, they only deepen, the anguish of the earnest 
spirit. 

In the fourth place, the infraction of physical law 


"is inevitably attended with suffering. The providential 


ruler is the moral. By parity of reason, disobedience 
to moral law must also be followed by suffering. 

In the fifth place, human law inflicts punishment 
upon the transgressor. It is not necessary now to enter 
into the question, What is the end sought by human law 


Tue PRINCIPLE oR SourcE oF THEOoLoay. 105 


in the infliction of its sentences? It is enough to know 
that the sentences are inflicted and that suffering, some- 
times death itself, is the result. The inference to the 
divine law is so obvious that it need not be pressed. 


In the sixth place, every religion, except Christianity, - 


is one purely of law. The sacrifices they may involve 
constitute them no exception to this remark; for those 
sacrifices, even when human beings are offered up, are 
merely legal duties performed for the purpose of obeying 
the divine law or satisfying the divine justice. There 
certainly can be nothing saving in one sinner religiously 
killing another sinner. No religion but Christianity 
provides redemption from the guilt, or salvation from 
the stain and power, of sin. The beautiful ethies which 
other religions may enforce, the moral precepts they 
enjoin, are but the imposition of law upon the conscience 
of the worshipper, without a hint of any adequate relief 
from the disastrous consequences of his failure to comply 


with them. They simply wield the lash of law. Chris- | 


tianity is the only redemptive religion under heaven. 
It is not a species codrdinate with other species under 


the genus, religion: it is the sole generic religion of the / 


race, excluding all others from the denomination of 
religion, and standing out in uncompromising and per- 
petual protest against them. They are all legal insti- 
tutes, bedecked wiith a few soiled and crumpled feathers 
borrowed from the mutilated traditions of an original 
revelation of the gospel. 

Such are the facts. How does the deist propose to 
meet them ? 

In the first place, he admits the existence of God as 


106 Discussions or THEroLocicaL Questions. 


’ an infinitely perfect moral governor of the world. He 
must also confess that he is a transgressor of his law. 
How does he propose to escape punishment? How to 
secure the divine favor ? 

In the second place, let us look at the suppositions he 
may make. 

Does he suppose that he can furnish acceptable obe- 
dience to the law imposed by natural religion? Apart 
from guilt and its resultant condemnation, which must 
be accounted for, the history of every hour of attempted 
obedience would convict him of failure. The supposi- 
tion is preposterous. 

Does he suppose that repentance will issue in pardon, 
and commend him to the divine approval? Repentance, 
without a thorough-going reformation of principles and 
conduct alike, would be worthless; and a repentance 
involving that result is to him impossible. Besides, 
even were it possible, it could furnish no reparation to 
the violated law, no satisfaction to the outraged justice, 
of God. 

Does he suppose that the divine Governor may dis- 
pense with the claims of his justice and law, and, by an 
exercise of sovereign prerogative, simply pardon him 
and admit him to his favor? The only plausible ground 
for this supposition is that the infinite benevolence of 
God may take precedence, and check the exercise, of his 
justice. This is impossible. The justice of God is the 
infinite and eternal norm of rectitude in his character. 
Contemplating this standard of righteousness in his own 
being he loves it with an infinite love. This is his holi- 
ness — the very life of the ever-blessed God. When, 


Tue Prrincivre or Source or THeotogy. 107 


therefore, his love for the happiness of a sinful creature 
comes into conflict with his love for his own infinite and 
glorious righteousness, the former must give way to the 
latter. Simple pardon of the sinner would involve the 


sacrifice not only of his justice, but of his benevolence in | 


the form of love to his own infinite rectitude. Love for 
himself must take precedence of love for the sinner. 
The glory of his own perfections is paramount to the 
happiness of a sinful creature. 

Such being the state of the case, unless natural 
religion admits the element of substitution, and actually 
provides a competent substitute for the sinner, on the 
ground of whose vicarious obedience he may be pardoned 
and received to the divine favor, he must lie down in 
hopeless despair. But natural religion embodies in 


itself no such element, and is, therefore, utterly insuffi- | 


cient to meet the facts or relieve the wants of the 
race. 

Secondly. It follows that there is a supreme necessity 
for a supernatural revelation making known to mankind 
a remedial scheme, involving the element of substitution, 
and providing a competent substitute for the sinner. 
The gospel is precisely such a revelation. Not only was 
it absolutely necessary to the salvation of sinners, but 
God has in infinite merey met the necessity, and by its 
actual communication has brought life and immortality 
to light, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all who 
believe in his inearnate and crucified Son. There is 
but one conceivable reason why deists or any other 
skeptics reject a scheme of such matchless philanthropy ; 
it is that, in addition to proclaiming salvation, it de 


108 Discussions or THEoLoaicaL QuEsTIons. 


nounces eternal punishment against wilful persistence 
in sin. 


TECHNICAL RATIONALISM. 


III. The position must next be considered of those 
who deny the supreme authority of a supernatural reve- 
lation. This is the ground taken by some who are 
technically styled Rationalists. 

The rationalists (proper) are divisible into two gen- 


* eral classes, those who deny and those who admit the 


fact of a supernatural revelation. The position of those 
who deny — infidel rationalists — will not here be con- 
sidered. It must be remitted to the discussion of the 
Evidences of the Divine Origin of Revelation in opposi- 
tion to infidelity. Those who admit the fact of a super- 
natural revelation are distributable into two special 
classes, the pure rationalists and the modified or dog- 
matic rationalists. Of each in the order stated. 

1. The Pure Rationalists. They admit a supernatural 
revelation, but contend that its office is simply to repub- 
lish and clarify the truths of natural theology. It 
originates nothing. It is not strictly a revelation, but 
an exposition; and of this the natural reason is the 
supreme judge. 

The fundamental fallacy in this scheme is in the 


‘ assumption that a lower authority can act as final judge 


of a higher. The natural reason is a lower authority 
than a supernatural revelation of God’s will. 
First. Reason is not what it originally was, nor are 


‘the relations in which it stands, and the circumstances 


of its environment, precisely what they were at first. 


Tue PrIncIPLE oR SourcE oF THEOLOGY. 109 


No issue is joined with the rationalist upon the question 
whether reason constituted a part of the natural reve- 
lation which was imparted to man in his original con- 
dition of innocence: a part, I say, for on the assumption 
that conscience is included by the rationalist under the 
generic denomination of reason, and no stand being now 
made on a distinction between them, it must not be over- 
looked that God partly revealed his perfections to man 
in the glorious fabric of the heavens and the earth. It 
is cheerfully conceded that in the intellectual and moral 
constitution of man God furnished a natural revelation y 
of himself, which in connection with the lessons of the 
phenomenal universe was designed to be a directory of 
faith and duty. And had man not sinned it would 
probably have been the only revelation which he would 
have received; illuminated and, it may have happened, ' 
augmented, it must be allowed, by any oral communica- 
tions it may have pleased his heavenly Maker to extend 
to him. This was ratio recta— right reason; and so 
long as it continued to be so may have been an infallible 
guide. 

But man sinned. A moral catastrophe occurred, a 
moral revolution took place, and it would be a fair pre- 
sumption, antecedent to any divine declaration of the 
fact, that reason must have been affected by the shock, 
that it must have been, to some extent, impaired by the 
damage resulting from the fall. We are not, however, 
left to probable reasoning upon the point. The ration- 
alist, with whom this argument deals, admits a super-, 
natural revelation, and that revelation expressly asserts 
that the understanding is darkened by sin. This ought 


¢ 


110 Dtscusstons or TuEoLoeicaL Questions. 


to be sufficient to settle the question in favor of the 
superior authority of supernatural revelation. 

But, further, it *s pertinent to the concessions of the 
rationalist to ask, Where was the necessity of a super- 


‘ natural revelation, unless reason had lost its infallibility 


“ 


as a guide of faith and duty? Its office would be super- 
fluous, and would be excluded by the law of parcimony. 
Must not the rationalist grant the superior authority 
of the new revelation of truth, since he concedes that it 
is designed to afford clearer light than reason actually 
possesses in regard to the scheme of natural religion ? 
That this opinion is certainly true—namely, that reason 
stands in need of assistance in its attempts to construe 
the doctrines of natural religion — is evinced by the 


‘ undeniable fact that reason has been jangled in regard 


to some of the plainest and most fundamental truths of 
that scheme. How, otherwise, could we account for dis- 
cussions concerning the questions of God’s existence, of 
creation, of the divine government of the world and of 
the immortality of the soul?— doctrines which are 
essential to the very existence of any religion. The best 
natural theologians of pagan antiquity were sadly con- 
fused upon some of these cardinal doctrines, and they — 
are vigorously contested upon the field of modern specu- 
lation. These facts show that reason is no longer the 
noble and exalted faculty, the right reason it onee was 
—to Hyepouxoa, directing all the judgments of the soul 
in respect to religion. It has fallen from the lofty seat 
of judge; its darkness needs to be enlightened, its 
aberrations to be corrected and its judgments to be 
validated by an unerring authority. 


Tue PrincreLe or Source or TuEotoey. 111 


Were anything more required to strengthen these 
sufficiently conclusive arguments derived from the 
present condition of reason, it would lie in the consid- 
eration that the decisions of a supreme authority ought 
to be unfluctuating and consistent with themselves. But 
it must be admitted that reason is a variable, while, from 
the nature of the case, a written revelation, is an inva- 
riable, quantity. It is, upon these grounds, evident that 
reason cannot be the final judge of a supernatural reve- 
lation, even though its office is conceived as limited to 
the republication and exposition of natural religion. 

Secondly. Supernatural revelation makes known 
truths belonging to natural religion of which reason has 
now no adequate knowledge, if indeed it has any know- 
ledge at all. The doctrine of the Trinity is one of these. 
It is not intended to say that rcason presents no intima- 
tions of a diversity of persons in the Godhead. On the 
contrary, the conviction of our own individual person- 
ality and of the personality of others different from 
ourselves, together with the actual experience of fellow- 
ship with other persons, and the fundamental distinction 
between subject and object which is native to the human 
mind, would lead us, reasoning by analogy, to at least a 
powerful presumption against the supposition of the 
unipersonality of God. But, for aught that appears, 
reason can suggest no more than this. There would seem 
to be no natural grounds upon which it could even pre- 
sumptively conclude to a trinity of persons. Now it 


=x 


< 


4 


cannot well be denied that the doctrine of the Trinity. 
was an article of natural religion. One consideration is 


sufficient to prove this. It is certain that the Trinity, 


112 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


is revealed in the supernatural revelation admitted by 
the rationalist; and it cannot for an instant be supposed 
that God could have at first revealed himself to man as 
simply one person — that is, that natural religion could 
have contained a doctrine as to the mode of the divine 
existence, which is contradicted by a supernatural reve- 
lation conceded to be a republication of natural religion. 
The two revelations, the natural and the supernatural, 
must, in this regard, be consistent with each other. 
Another doctrine of natural religion which is now 
unknown to mere reason is that of the federal relation 
of the race to Adam. That this doctrine is republished 
by supernatural revelation is manifest from such con- 
siderations as these:! The account given in Genesis of 
the transactions between God and Adam in paradise ; 
the argument of Paul in the fifth chapter of Romans in 
which he expounds the analogy between Ohrist and 
Adam, from which it follows that if Christ is a federal 
head so must Adam have been; the declaration of the 
same apostle in the fifteenth chapter of First Corin- 
thians, “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be 
made alive,” which taken in connection with the argu- 
ment of which it forms a part must mean: as all who 
were in Adam die, so all who are in Christ shall be made 
alive; the discussion in the second chapter of Hebrews 
touching the necessity of the Incarnation, in which the 
writer shows that Christ, as the representative of his 
brethren must have conformed to the law of community 
of nature between Adam and his posterity, the inference 


* For a fuller discussion of this point the reader is referred to 
the writer’s work on Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism. 


Tue Princiete or Source or TuErotocy. 113 


being necessitated that Adam was also a representative 
of his seed; the fact that without a covenant, limiting 
the time of the required obedience, justification would 
be impossible, since in the absence of such limitation 
upon the obedience naturally demanded by naked law, it 
must necessarily be unfinished, perpetual, contingent — 
a supposition incompatible with that of justification; 
and the catholic teaching of Scripture that an inde 
fectible life was originally attainable through obedience 
to the law — a doctrine inconsistent with the hypothesis 
that there was no covenant between God and man. 

It thus appears that reason is indebted to the Scrip- 
tures for some of the matter of man’s original religion 
which had been lost through the blinding and corrupting 
influence of sin. If it would be absurd to say that an 
ignorant pupil is superior in authority to the teacher 
who communicates to him the materials of his know- 
ledge, equally so would it be to affirm that reason is the’ 
final judge of that supernatural revelation from which 
alone it derives information in regard) to the very exist- 
ence of some of the articles even of natural religion. 

_The disciple becomes the master, the servant the lord. 
But this is not all, for — 

Thirdly. Some of the truths of supernatural reve , 
lation*transcend reason: it is unable to originate them,’ 
and it is unwilling to receive them when delivered. The 
question not now being raised, how far the truths of 
natural religion were revealed to the reason to be 
received by it as delivered by God, but it being assumed, 
for the sake of argument, that reason itself, according 


to the hypothesis of the rationalist, was the revelation 
8 


114 Discussions or THroLocicat Questions. 


of the truths of natural religion, the inquiry in relation 
to the judicial function of reason would be non-existent, 
except in the sense of a revelation sitting in judgment 
upon itself, of reason acting as a judge of reason. When, 
however, it is conceded that a supernatural revelation 
has been communicated, the very terms imply that it is 
addressed to reason, that, reason is the recipient of some- 
what that is delivered to it. God makes a report of his 
will and the ear of reason is supposed to be open to 
receive it; and reason, it ought here to be remarked for 
the sake of clearness, is taken as embracing both the 
power of thought and that of faith, as generically the 
thinking and the believing faculty. -Now it is cheer- 
fully granted that with reference to a supernatural 
* yevelation reason has a preliminary function to dis- 
_ charge. It is entitled, up to the measure of its com- 
, petency, to examine the claim of a revelation professing 
to come from God. It cannot be denied the right, under 
proper limitations, such as freedom from prejudice and 
| passion, a desire to know the truth, and a recognition 
- of the dependence of the human faculties upon God for 
guidance, to sift the evidence upon which the claim is 
based. This is its legitimate office.’ But when this 
office has been discharged — whether faithfully or un- 
faithfully is not now inquired — one or another of two 
opposite conclusions may be reached. The evidence may 
be pronounced unsatisfactory and the claim of the pro- 
fessed revelation rejected. This is the position of the 
infidel rationalist. On the other hand, the evidence 


1This subject may be treated more in detail as the discussion 
advances. 


Tuer Princrete or Source or Turotogy. 115 


may be adjudged to be sufficient, and the professed reve- 
lation will, accordingly, be accepted as real. This is the 
position of the rationalist whose theory is now under 
examination. 

Now, to him the proof that the admitted supernatural 
revelation contains matter which was not discoverable 
by reason must, upon his own principles, upset his 
hypothesis that it is a mere republication and exposition 
of natural religion. According to him, reason is the 
measure of natural religion, for reason was originally 
the revelation of that religion, and a new revelation 
simply restoring the old religion cannot, from the nature 
of the case, overpass the limits of reason. But if the 


. . ¥ 
supernatural revelation also contains new and trans- 


cendent matter, a novel issue is made. It is whether 
reason is competent finally to judge concerning truths, 
which transcend both natural religion and the faculty 
which was its revealing organ. The question is, whether 
reason can act as supreme judge in a sphere which lies 
outside of its legitimate powers and functions. 

It is difficult to see how any candid mind can fail to 
recognize the fact that the Scriptures as a supernatural 
revelation involve truths which lie infinitely beyond the 
genius and the scope of natural religion, truths which 
were originated by them, which never could have been 
discovered, and never can be comprehended by the 
human reason. Natural religion, as historically devel- 
oped in its actual results, is one of law, and law con- 
fessedly makes no provision of relief for the violators 
of its commands. It utters no syllable of mercy to the 
transgressor. It convicts and sentences him. The 


< 


116 Discussions or THroLocicaL Questions. 


scheme of redemption from the effects of sin and from 
sin itself must, therefore, have been a free determination 
of the divine will which reason could never have antici- 
pated, a product of the divine mercy which was as 
unexpected as it was glorious; and every step in its 
execution was a surprising manifestation of the un- 
merited favor of God to those who, as they had ineurred 
his condemnation by their own fault, could have looked 
for nothing but punishment at his hands. Into this 
category fall the doctrines of the Incarnation; the per- 
son of Christ; the Atonement — the life, death and 
resurrection of Jesus; his ascension, intercession and 
mediatorial reign; the saving offices of the Holy Ghost; 
the whole process by which redemption is experimentally 
applied to the sinner, regeneration, justification, adop- 
tion and sanctification; and the general resurrection 
of the bodies of the dead at the last day. These are 
doctrines of supernatural revelation; and it were worse 
than idle to say that they involve simply the republica- 
tion, or reénforcement, or exposition of the truths of 
natural religion. That they transcend the natural 
“ reason is susceptible of proof from facts: 

In the first place, philosophy never dreamed of them; 
_ and philosophy measured the capacities of thought and 

plumbed the depths of speculation. It has often been 
truly remarked that it pleased God to introduce Chris- 
tianity into the world after the highest results of human 
wisdom had been reached, and yet “the world by wisdom 
knew not God.” The genius of the Greek philosophers 
attained to the climax of subtle, analytical, abstract 
speculation, and, unlike that of their modern analogues, 


"es 


Tue PriIncIPLe or Source or THEOLOGY. 117 


the Titanic Absolutists of Germany, had to deal with 
the great problems of natural theology, almost wholly 
unmodified by the influence of supernatural revelation. 
What was the result? So far as even natural religion 
was concerned, Greek philosophy was ignorant of some , 
of its truths, and bungled about those that were partially 
known. It could not get quit of the eternity of matter 
and the consequent limitation of the Infinite Being, and 
the Socratic argument for the immortality of the soul, 
wonderfully acute and profoundly interesting as it is, 
proceeded upon the assumption of the soul’s existence 
previously to its connection with the body. So far as 
the doctrines of redemption are concerned, that philos- 
ophy was an absolute blank. The faet is a striking proof 
that those doctrines were incapable of origination or 
discovery by the natural reason. 

In the second place, the reason of the Jew, trained , 
as he had been in the school of the Mosaic institute, 
which was evangelical and redemptive in relation to the 
great ends it was designed to inculcate, and possessed, 
as he was in part, of supernatural revelation foreshadow- 
ing a redemption to be fully accomplished — the reason 
of the Jew rejected the doctrines of Christianity (as 
such) when they were proposed for his acceptance, and 
the facts of Christianity when they were achieved before 
his very eyes. His reason stumbled at them as a stum- ° 
bling-block and rock of offence, and refused the corner- 
stone of the fabric of salvation. He demanded in proof 
a sign from heaven, conveniently sinking out of view 
the fact that such a sign had been furnished. To this 
demand Jesus replied, “An evil and adulterous genera- 


118 Discussions or TuroLogicaL Quxstrons. 


tion seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be — 
given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as 
Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s 
belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three 
nights in the heart of the earth.” By this answer he 
plainly intimated that he would fulfil the type of the 
prophet Jonah, the historical validity of which they 
admitted, and, by dying and being buried, and rising 
among them, would accomplish the facts themselves of 
redemption in their presence and before their eyes; so 
that they would have the evidence of intuition itself for 
their achievement. The implication was as plain as it 
was tremendously impressive: If ocular demonstration 
of the very facts themselves of redemption in the process 
of its accomplishment does not convince you, no symbols 
of those facts, no phenomenal signs attesting them, 
would induce you to admit them. Notwithstanding the 
actual presentation of this conclusive evidence, the body 
of the Jews rejected the doctrines of Christianity. What 
could more forcibly show that the truths of redemption, 
supernaturally revealed, transcend the power of the 
natural reason to originate, discover or comprehend 
them ? 

In the third place, when these truths, which transcend 
the ability of the natural reason to originate, discover 
or comprehend them, are actually delivered to it by 
supernatural revelation, they are inapprehensible and 
inadmissible by it. It is unable to apprehend them, and 
‘unwilling to admit them. A distinction, it may be 
observed, is here drawn between comprehension and 
apprehension. It is both legitimate and necessary. 


Tue PrincieLe or Source oF THEoLoGy. 119 


What is comprehended is understood; not all is under- 
stood which is apprehended. Some of the truth’s of 
natural religion transcended the ability of the thinking 
faculty, short in its tether, either to comprehend or to 
apprehend — they are absolutely inconceivable, unthink- 
able. In this category are the existence of the infinite _ 
God, creation out of nothing, the spiritual essence of the 
soul, and its influence upon matter. But faith, the 
ability of which to know reaches immeasurably beyond 
that of thought, while even it fails to comprehend them, 
distinctly apprehends these great truths and positively 
affirms them. What conception cannot touch, much less 
grasp, faith lays hold of and asserts. This is spoken in 
regard to natural thought and natural faith as specific 
and codrdinate elements of natural reason, as the generic 
faculty of cognition. Did, therefore, supernatural reve- 
lation merely republish the truths of natural religion, 
transcendent as some of them were — that is, surpassing 
the ability of the thinking faculty either to comprehend , 
or apprehend them — faith, as a power of the natural 
reason, would be able to apprehend them, and might be 
willing to admit them. 

But the supernaturally revealed truths of redemption, 
while, of course, they lie beyond the compass of thought, 
are not spiritually apprehensible by faith itself, con- 
sidered as natural. There is a want of adaptation be- 
tween the natural powers and the spiritual truths to be 
apprehended, an absence of ability to perceive super-; 
natural realities, just as in the defect ef the bodily senses 
there could be no perception of the phenomena of the 
external world. The Scriptures as confessedly a super- 


~ 


ad € 


120 Discussions or TuxoLocicaL Querstions. 


natural revelation settle this point when they say, “The 
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he — 
know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 
There is a natural cognition of the propositions in which 
the supernatural truths are stated, and with the illumi- 
nating aid of the Holy Ghost, some intelligent appre- 
hension of the testimony of God through which those 
truths are conveyed and of their bearing, to some extent, 
upon the spiritual condition of men; else the gospel 
could not be brought into contact with their minds and 
the condition of “hearing,” through which faith comes, 
would not exist. But, without the supernatural regene- 
_ration of the soul, infusing into it and all its powers a 
‘ new principle of spiritual life, there can be no spiritual 
cognition of those transcendent truths, no supernaturally 
engendered ability to apprehend supernatural realities. 
“Except a man,” said Christ, “be born again, he cannot 
see the kingdom of God.” Now faith is spiritual cogni- 
tion, the supernaturally imparted power of perception 
which relates the soul to the supernatural facts of 
redemption. It is natural faith transmuted into super- 
natural by the regenerating energy of the Holy Spirit. 
Even the transcendent truths of natural religion, which 
“had been apprehended by natural faith, are then spirit- 
ually apprehended by supernatural faith. So says the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews when discoursing 
of this latter kind of faith — “Faith is the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
Through faith we understand that the worlds were 
framed by the word of God, so that things which are 


Tuer PriInciIPLe or Source oF THEotoay. 121 


seen were not made of things which do appear. He that 
cometh to God must believe that he is.”” Faith super- 
naturally and spiritually apprehends what natural faith 
naturally apprehends; but in addition to this, as other 
Seriptures teach, it cognizes truths which are unknown 
by natural reason. 

It is true, ‘as a great theological thinker has intimated, 
that Christianity has introduced no new original prin- 
ciple into the moral government of God. It has not 
changed its essential features so as to revolutionize it. 
In its fundamental elements it abides, like its Author, 
stable and unchangeable. But Christianity has placed 
the old principles of God’s moral government in entirely 
new relations, imposed upon them altogether new modi- 
fications, and directed them to utterly new ends. These 
novel applications of ancient and venerable principles 
are so prodigious, so startling, so glorious as to impart 
to them the appearance of new, original principles of 
moral government. Now these new and transcendent 
provisions, deriving their type and denomination from 
the genius of Redemption, when announced by revela- 
tion to the natural reason are rejected by it. Some of 
them it declares to be contradictory to its fundamental 
laws, and, therefore, contradictory to that primal reve- 
lation which God himself imbedded in the rational con- 
stitution of’ man. Confessedly, then, reason did not 
originate them. They are not its products; for, if any- 


thing be clear, it is that whatever reason has produced, 


it is both able to apprehend and willing to admit; else 
she would be an unnatural mother refusing to recognize 
her own children, or like Medea destroying them. 


S 


¥ 


v 


122 Discussions or THEroLocicaL Questions. 


These distinctive truths of redemption, these charac- 
teristic elements of Christianity, manifestly transeend- 
ing the powers of the natural reason, cannot be frittered 
away except by a rationalizing criticism which would 
do violence at once to the laws of language, and the 
canons of historical evidence. Admit that they lie be- 
yond the province of natural religion, and are undis- 
coverable, and when announced inapprehensible, by the 
natural reason, and the conclusion is inevitable that they 
cannot be reduced under its judicial authority. Having 
decided that the professed revelation which communi- 
cates them is really from God, reason thenceforth is 
bound to abdicate the seat of the judge and descend to 
that of the learner. It must be either a subject or a 
rebel. 

Fourthly. The latest expression of the will of a 
supreme authority must take precedence of the earlier: 
it must be ultimately decisive. It is true that the 
supreme authority, being the same in both cases, cannot, 
as to authority simply, be superior to itself. All, how- 
ever, that the rationalist, whose position is under con- 
sideration, could get from this admission is an equipoise 
of authority between reason, the first expression of God’s 
will, and supernatural revelation, the latest; and to take 
that ground would destroy his own doctrine of the supe- 
riority of reason, as judge, to the Scriptures. The 
admission cannot affect the Christian position. 

In the first place, a supreme authority may utter itself 
a second time in relation to a subject upon which it has 
spoken, in order to correct misapprehensions to which 
the first expression of its will may have been exposed, or 


Tue Princrete or Source oF THEotocy. 123 


to counteract abuses to which it may have been subjected. 
This cannot be denied; and then it must be conceded 
that the last utterance is, in regard to authority, superior 
to the first. Precisely so has it been, as has already been 
shown, with God’s first revelation to man. It has been 
grievously misapprehended and abused, and it has 
pleased God to furnish a new revelation in which he 
confirms the truths embraced in the old, and at the same 
time corrects the errors which an imperfect reason and 
a corrupt heart have superinduced. It is clear that the 
latest revelation of natural religion is of superior author- 
ity to reason, whether reason be considered as the 
original revelation of that religion, or the faculty to 
which it was addressed. Not that it is implied that 
reason was in fact the original revelation. The suppo- 
sition is made in accordance with whatever view the 
rationalist may elect. I am satisfied that reason itself 
would never have been able, without some objective com- 
munication of truth by God to have excogitated the 
scheme of natural religion. 

In the second place, the rationalist concedes that 
supernatural revelation has to some extent expounded 
natural religion. Now an exposition of a code by com- 
petent authority is acknowledged on all hands to possess 
final decisiveness. 

In the third place, did supernatural revelation supple- 
ment the scheme of natural religion it would, to the , 
extent of the added articles, or the new light thrown on 
the old articles, be superior to a former revelation. It 
has in the foregoing remarks been shown that reason is 
not now qualified to sit in judgment even upon the 


’ 


< 


124 Discussions or TuroLocicaL Questions. 


original contents of natural religion. Much less, there- 
fore, would it be competent to act as final judge of a 
revelation by which the scope of that first scheme would 
be enlarged. But the argument becomes overwhelming 
when the fact is weighed that, in the latest revealed 
expression of his will, God has absolutely ereated a new 
religion. The gospel scheme is not natural religion 
republished and expounded anew. It is a different 
species of religion. It takes its peculiar designation 


from its relation to sinners, whom it proposes not merely 


<. 


to instruct but to save. “This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners.” Natural religion and the 
gospel is each religion. They are generically alike. 
But the specific difference of the latter — and it is a 
tremendous one—is redemption. Such is the pro- 
digious import of God’s latest expression of his will to 
man. Why pursue the question farther? To say that 
the reason of a sinner, condemned by the original 
religion of law — and most certainly one condemned is 
inferior in authority to the law which condemns him — 
is the final judge of a supernatural revelation announc- 
ing a religion of redemption, is to treat with contempt 
all the facts of the case, and to break with common 
sense itself. : 

2. The Modified Rationalists, or Dogmatists. They 
belong to the school of the celebrated Christian Wolff, 
who systematized the philosophy of Leibnitz, and ap- 
plied the method of mathematical demonstration to the 
doctrine of theology. They admit a supernatural reve- 
lation, and also the supernatural origin and nature of 


Tur Prinorrie or Source or Turotoaey. 125 


some of its contents. They deny that its authority is , 
complete until its contents have been demonstrated by 
reason. 

The fundamental fallacy of this scheme is that a , 
higher authority needs to be confirmed by a lower. 

The authority which confirms must be ultimate and 
supreme. As that authority is held to be reason, this 
scheme is in principle the same with that of the pure 
rationalists, which has just been examined. It is, there- 
fore, not deemed necessary to consider it in detail. The 
arguments already employed are applicable to it. 


Mysticism. 


IV. Next oceurs for examination the position of those _ 
who deny the completeness of a supernatural revela- 
tion. 

The preliminary remark must be made that both the 
Mystic and the Romanist, who have been assigned to the , 
same subordinate class under the generic designation of 
Rationalists, agree in denying the supreme authority of 
the Bible. Some authority they alike ascribe to it, but 
it is not sole and ultimate as a revealed rule of faith and 
duty. They reach this result in different ways, it is ‘ 
true, but still it is one which is common to both. So far, 
therefore, as this consideration is concerned, they are to 
be regarded as, in some degree, making common cause 
with the Technical Rationalist. With him they coneur 
in refusing to make the supernatural revelation con- 
tained in the Scriptures the supreme authority in mat- 
ters of religion. As that position has already been in 


x 


*! 
126 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


the general considered under the preceding head, only 
what is, in this relation, peculiar to the Mystic and the 
Romanist will be subjected to examination. 

In the classification which has been given, the Mystic 
and the Romanist have been assigned to the same specific 
class, for the reason that a common differentiating char- 
acteristic belongs to them — they both deny the com- 
pleteness of a supernatural revelation. They differ, 
however, as to the manner in which they respectively 
propose to complete it. The mystic, so far as he is 


' attached to a religious school, supplements it by imme 


we hy 


diate revelations made to individuals by the Holy Spirit. 


The Romanist supplements it by tradition and the 


infallible decisions of councils and popes. 

1. Let us, then, first attend to the position held in 
common by mystics— at least the sounder class of 
mystics — and Romanists, namely, the denial of the 
completeness of supernatural revelation — that is, of 
the sacred Scriptures. This enforces the necessity of 
proving the completeness of the Scriptures; and by their 


, completeness is meant the perfect sufficiency of their 


teachings in relation to religion, both theoretical and 
practical. They are a perfect rule of faith and duty. 
The argument needs not to be prosecuted at great length 
or in minute detail. It may be restricted to but two 
steps. : 

(1) It is ad hominem. The soberer class of mystics 
and the Romanists concede the inspiration of the Serip- 
tures. “The religious Society of Friends,” says Thomas 
Evans, a prominent representative of the Society, “has 
always believed that the holy Scriptures were written by 


Tur PRincieLe or Source or THEotogy. 127 


divine inspiration.”* Perrone, the late professor of 
Theology in the Jesuit College at Rome, in his Prelec- 
tiones Theologice, published in 1840, says, “Doctrina 
porro Catholica est, omnes prorsus sive Veteris sive Novi 
Testamenti canonicos libros esse divinitus inspiratos.” ? 
He states the doctrine of Trent. 

Now, if the Scriptures are inspired, God is their 
inspirer. They are, therefore, so far as they go, ad- 
mitted to be invested with the authority and stamped 
with the truth of God. Consequently, they are, within 
the province covered by them, and in regard to the mat- 


ters concerning which they utter themselves, confessed ‘ 


by the best mystics and by the Romanists to be a rule of 
faith and duty. They may not be held as the only rule, 
as a matter of fact it is contended that they need to be 
supplemented; it is maintained that there are things 
belonging to religion about which they do not speak — 
but as far as they do speak, the mystic and the Romanist 
explicitly admit that they speak with God’s authority. 


(2) The Scriptures affirm their own completeness. | de 


This is one of the things touching which they speak, 
and, therefore, as to this thing the decision is ultimate 
and indisputable. Let it be observed that the question 
is not now about the inspiration of the Scriptures. Were 
that the question, to cite their own declaration that they 
are inspired might be to reason in a circle. In that case, 


* Hist. Relig. Denominations in the United States, p. 286. A 
Yearly Meeting of the Friends in London, in 1829, declared their 
full belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures: Milner’s Relig. 
Denom., etc., p. 242. 

*Vol. II, Pars. II., Cap. II. 


y 


s 


< 


~ 


/ 
‘ 


‘ 


128 Discussions or THEoLoGgicaL QUESTIONS. 


the appeal must be to the credibility of the Seriptures. 
They are a credible witness. Consequently their testi- 
mony to their own inspiration is trustworthy. But in 
the question before us, the appeal is not to the credibility 
of the Scriptures, but to their inspired authority, as 
conceded by all the parties. If they testify to their own 
completeness, the question ought to be closed. The 
declaration of their own completeness is given in two 
forms: 

First, positively. Other passages being omitted, ref- 
erence is made to 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17, “All Seripture is 
given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doe- 
trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, 
thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” The ren- 
dering of the Vulgate is, “Omnis scriptura divinitus 
inspirata utilis est ad docendum, ad arguendum, ad 
corripiendum, ad erudiendum in justitia: ut perfectus 
sit homo Dei, ad omne opus bonum instructus.” 

So far as I know the canonical authority of the seeond 
Epistle to Timothy, in which this passage occurs, has 
never been questioned by any respectable section of the 
Quakers, and it is certainly admitted by Romanists. It 
is in the catalogue of their canonical books. To both 
of these parties, then, it speaks with the authority of 
God. 

By some expositors the meaning of the passage is said 
to be, not that all Scripture as a whole is declared to be 
inspired, but only every part. But what is predicable 
of every part of a whole is predicable of the whole. By 
others the meaning is taken to be, that every Scripture 


Tue PrincieLe or Source or Turontoay. 129 


which is inspired is profitable for doctrine, ete. This 
would amount to the astonishing position that every 
particular inspired book is a perfect rule of faith and 
duty. Does every inspired book answer all the predica- 
tions of this passage? Nothing is gained, unless it be 
absurdity, by deviating from the old, accepted sense of 
this great passage. But to the Quakers and the Roman- 
ists the questions raised by these exceptional renderings 
of the passage do not exist. They adopt the meaning - 
that the Scriptures are inspired and are profitable for 
the ends which are specified. Now does the inspired 
apostle here affirm their completeness? He says that 
they teach doctrine, that they refute error and rebuke 
wrong-doing, that they correct irregularity, that they 
instruct in the elements of a righteous character and the 
duties that pertain to it; and that they do all this that 
the man of God, whether he be teacher or taught, may be 
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, or, 
as the Revised English Version has it, “Complete, fur- , 
nished completely unto every good work.” Is this not 
asserting the completeness of the Scriptures? Is it not 
affirming that they are a complete rule of faith and prac- : 
tice? Is there any need, is there any room, for anything 
supplementary to perfect that which is perfect, to com- 
plete that which is complete? Until, therefore, this 
passage is overthrown, the completeness of the Serip- 
tures is grounded in the authoritative testimony of God, 
according to the concessions of mystics and Romanists 
themselves. 2 
Secondly. The same principle of the completeness aA 
of the Scriptures as a revelation of God’s will is also 
9 


130 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


taught by them negatively. We are forbidden to add 
anything to the inspired words of God. Let us hear the 
divine testimony. Deut. iv. 2, “Ye shall not add unto 
the word which I command you, neither shall ye dimin- 
ish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments 
of the Lord your God which I command you.” Deut. 
xii. 32, “Whatsoever I command you, observe to do it: 
thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” 
Matt. xv. 6, “Thus have ye made the commandment of 
God of none effect by your tradition.” Matt. xxviii. 19, 
20, “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you.” The necessary 
implication is that they were unwarranted to teach any- 
thing else. They not only had no authority to add, but 
were forbidden to add, anything to the things which 
Christ commanded. Rev. xxii. 18, 19, “For I testify 
unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy 
of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God 
shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this 
book.” Lest it should be said that these commands and 
warnings have reference not to the Scriptures as a whole, 
but to the particular books in which they are found, God 
gives a general testimony which has a sweep commensu- 
rate with all the words of inspiration — Prov. xxx. 5, 6, 
“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them 
‘ that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his 
words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” 

This great principle, that men cannot transcend the 

! commandments of God without incurring guilt and 


< 


Tue PrinciPLEe or SourcE or THEonoay. 131 


bringing down upon themselves divine judgments, is 
enforced by many concrete instances, accounts of which 
are furnished in the Scriptures. Such are the instances 
of Cain and his bloodless offering; of Nadab and Abihu, 
the sons of Aaron; of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; of 
Moses smiting the rock at Kadesh; of Saul offering a 
burnt offering at Gilgal; of Uzza’s unlawful touching 
of the ark of the covenant; of King Uzziah officiating 
as a priest; of King Ahaz offending both as to function 
and place; and, in the New Testament, of Stephen’s 
rebuke of the Jewish council, for which he suffered mar- 
tyrdom, but received the most extraordinary evidence 
of the divine approval —a rebuke, the contemptuous 
disregard of which was not long afterwards followed by 
a stroke of retribution which shattered the Jewish 
church-state and polity. 

The scriptures thus, both positively and negatively, 
bear unmistakable witness to their own completeness ; 
and as the books in which this testimony is borne are ‘ 
acknowledged by the parties to this controversy to be 
canonical, these parties are inconsistent with themselves 
in any attempt they may make to supplement them. 


“Forever, O Lord,” exclaims the Psalmist, “thy word is — 


settled in heaven.” What is thus by God himself eter- 
nally settled in heaven no mortal worms can, without 
impiety and folly, presume to settle on earth by any 
matter which they may profess to add to it, or by any 
authority by which they may affect to confirm it. 

The conclusion which has now been reached is clear, 
so far forth as the question of adding to or supplement- 
ing the Scriptures by human agency or human authority 


132 Discussions or THEoLoaicaL QuEsTIONS. 


is concerned. But we here confront the question, 
whether it may not be God’s will to supplement the 
Seriptures, through human instruments acting by his 
authority and under his influence, or by the immediate 
communication of truth by his Spirit to the individual 
mind. ‘That question, however, will fall to be con- 
sidered when mysticism and Romanism shall be sepa- 
rately examined. For the present, therefore, it is post- 
poned. 

2. Let us now pass on to consider the peculiar and 
distinctive position of the mystic. , 

(1) Contenting ourselves at this point with the as- 
sumption that the discussion has reference to the school 
of mystics as it has existed and developed itself within 
the bounds of the nominal Christian church; and with 
a rough characterization of them as those who do not 
simply depend upon the objective contents of the Serip- 
tures as affording the basis of religious knowledge and 
life, but also and principally upon direct communion 
with God, upon the feelings, and upon immediate revela- 
tions from God to the soul as furnishing the foundation 
of that knowledge and life; we may, without under- 
taking the endless task of differentiating specific types 
of mystical thinkers from each other, seek to group 
them into certain general classes. Different writers 
have presented different classifications. Those who 
desire to investigate the subject minutely must consult 
church histories, histories of doctrine, encyclopedias," 
and special treatises on mysticism. All that can be 

1 There is a valuable article on Mysticism, by Prof. Seth, in the 
Encyc. Britannica. 


Tue PRINCIPLE oR Source oF THEOLOGY. 133 


attempted in a discussion like this, which professes to 
deal with certain radical principles that reduce the ° 
system_to some sort of unity, is to give a succinct histori- 
cal statement. 

First. The ancient mystics, or those who flourishedy 
in the early church. Of these the first who rose into 
notoriety was Montanus, from whom the theory of ' 
Montanism received its designation. His peculiar tenet 
was that Christ predicted the coming of the Paraclete, 
who would, over and beyond the teachings of himself as 
the Messiah, make new revelations to his people. Ter- 
tullian endeavored to systematize the distinctive ele- 
ments of Montanism. Dionysius, the Pseudo-_ 
Areopagite, labored to incorporate the principles of Neo-- 
Platonism into the Christian system. His writings 
exerted a considerable and protracted influence upon 
the Greek Church, and were not without effect in creat- 
ing the mysticism of the Western Church during the 
middle ages. 

Secondly. The Mysties of the Middle Ages. Promi-” 
nent among these was John Scotus Erigena, who in- » 
sisted upon the exaltation of reason above authority. 
He introduced into the Western Church the writings of 
the Pseudo-Dionysius, which gave rise to the Gallo- 
Romaniec Mysticism. “Its principal seat was the mon- 
astery of St. Victor in Paris, and its principal repre- 
sentatives were Hugh, Richard, and Walter, of St. 
Victor.” Prominent also were Eckart, a man reputedly 
of powerful speculative intellect; Tauler, a great 
preacher; Suso, a poet, and Ruysbrock, the doctor 
ecstaticus, Another extensive class of mystics during 


x 


.) 


134 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QuesTIoNs. 


this period maintained that faith, in religious matters, 
precedes science. 
Thirdly. Modern Mystics. In Germany mysticism, 


, after Reformation, received the name of Pietism; in 


France, Italy and Spain, that of Quietism; and in 
Great Britain and America it has been generally desig- 
nated as Quakerism. In Germany its chief represen- 
tatives were Schwenkfeld, Paracelsus, Weigel and Jacob 
Boehme; in other parts of the Continent, Michael 
Molinos, Madame Guyon and Archbishop Fénélon; and 
in Great Britain and America, Fox, Barclay, and Penn. 

Those who have been usually assigned to the school 
of mysticism, on account of a general similarity of 
sentiment have differed from each other in important 
respects. The school may be distributed into two classes, 
accordingly as one or another of two great types of view 


has been the controlling one — philosophical and reli- 


gious mystics. Not that it is meant to say that they did 
not both profess to be Christian, or to be governed by the 
principles of the Christian religion, as they conceived 
them. But one of these classes was predominantly 
philosophical, and the other was either predominantly 
or exclusively religious. 

(2) Let us consider the position of the philosophical 
mystics. The fundamental and controlling principle 
upon which they may be reduced to unity as a class is, 
The possibility of reaching a state of the soul in which 
it becomes consciously identified with God. Those who 
are influenced by this principle, whatever may be their 
religious tendencies or aims, may properly be assigned 
to the category of philosophical mystics, 


Tue PrincreLe or Source or THEotoay. 135 


The means to be adopted with the end in view of 
conscious identity with God are: Abstraction of the soul 


from the world with all its phenomena and relations, y 


and from the flesh with all its propensities and solicita- 
tions; the renunciation and mortification of self; the 
suppression of all activity; continuous meditation upon 
the Deity and intuitive gazing upon him; and a passive 
posture of the soul which conditions the reception of 
God or absorption into him. 

The result is either a delicious passivity — a religious 
dolce far niente — or an entrancing ecstasy. 

Those who may be referred to this class are further 


distinguishable as some of them are mainly speculative ; 


and others mainly practical. 


First. Those who are speculative develop a tendency, 


towards pantheism. Any philosophical thought which 
discovers a trend towards the identity of man with God 
is, of course, pantheistic. It must be observed that the 
union with God affirmed by mystics is not the mystical 
union with God maintained by evangelical theologians. 
The Scriptures do indeed speak of believers in Christ 


as made partakers of the divine nature. But this does 
not mean that they are partakers of the divine essence, — 


but of the moral character of God. Between the essence 


of God and that of man, although redeemed and sanc- © 


tified, is the breadth of infinity. Nor does the union 
of saints with God signify a personal identity. God and 
man do not become one person. God ever says to the 
redeemed man, thou, and he employs the same form of 
address to God. The believer’s union with God is 
through Christ — he is united with God because united 


“ 


136 Discussions or THEoLogicaL QUESTIONS. 


with Christ; and his union with Christ is of a three- 
fold character — federal, because he was represented 
by Christ in the covenant of redemption; natural, be- 
eause Christ partook of human nature; and spiritual, 
because he is spiritually united with Christ by the vital 
bond of the Holy Spirit, who dwells both in Christ and 
in him, and by the exercise on his part of saving faith 
in Christ. This is the union of God and believing men 
of which the Scriptures speak, not their identity. The 
Scriptures never speak blasphemously; and to say that 
a man in a state of extreme laziness, or that a woman 
in a convent with religious hysterics, is identified with 
God is blasphemous. 

Were there no other consideration opposed to this 
hypothesis, this alone would be fatal to its claims, that 
as those who profess to attain to this infinitely exalted 
condition of identity with the Deity are still in the body, 
God would become incarnate in as many instances as 
there are human beings who are one with him! Another 
obvious argument is, that the mystic, if successful, in 
becoming identified with God loses his own personality. 
This must follow from his hypothesis, whether he semi- 
pantheistically attributes personality to God, or pan- 
theistically denies it to him. But if his personality is 
swallowed up in God, he has lost his ability to hold com- 
munion with God, since communion supposes intercourse 
between different persons; and he has become incapable 
of worship, since that is rendered by a person to another 
person who is divine; in short he has “lost his religion” ! 
To this extraordinary consummation must the discipli- 
nary process of the mystic come, that in reaching the end 


Tue Princrece or Source or THEotocy. 137 
he seeks, he reaches the end of his religion! But as pan- 
theism has been treated of in a previous discussion, 
nothing more will be said in regard to this aspect of 
mysticism.* 

Secondly. ‘hose who are mainly practical develop a 
tendency towards monastic asceticism; in fact, they 
adopt its methods. The arguments, therefore, which 
hold against that system may be employed against 
mysticism in this form. Some of them will be concisely 
presented. 

In the first place, it is out of accord with the Serip- 
tures. It discards their authority as the supreme rule 
of faith and duty. It throws out of account their most 
vital doctrines, such as the mediatorship and the media- 
torial offices of Christ, vicarious atonement, and the 
office and work of the Holy Ghost. It dispenses with 
the ministry, the preaching of the gospel and the sacra- 
ments. It contradicts the spirit and disobeys the pre- 
cepts of the Bible. The Bible enjoins love to all men, 
and commands us to discharge the duties which spring 
from all the relations of life. This system concentrates 
regard upon the individual and makes nothing of social 
obligations. It therefore mutilates and dismembers the 
religion which the Scriptures inculeate, and sets up a 
mere fragment of it in its place. It enforces another 
kind of religion, one born of the speculative fancy of the 
human brain. 

In the second place, it obliterates the distinction be- 
tween a legitimate self-love and a criminal selfishness. 
In aiming to destroy the latter, it kills the former. It 


*Pantheism is also considered in the writer’s Discussions of 
Philosophical Questions. 


138 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


confounds them, and therefore decrees the mortification 
of both. 

In the third place, it rejects the example of Christ. 
“He went about doing good,” but it goes nowhere and 
seeks to do no good. This mysticism has no use for the 
philanthrophy of Jesus. He gave to others, it absorbs 
into itself; he ministered to others, it ministers to self; 
he acted for others, it does not work even for self. It is 
one long dream while it lasts, and ends in “the dream of 
a dream.” It is better than Christ and worse than 
nothing. 

In the fourth place, it destroys the principle of the 
communion of saints. True religion rejoices in the 
fellowship of love and worship. The more who believe 
in Christ and together praise God and the Lamb the 
happier it is; it secludes itself, closets itself with God, 
and seeks to confine him to its own little, narrow stall. 
So long as it is being absorbed into God, the rest of the 
world may, for aught it cares, be absorbed into the pit. 
What it makes of the heavenly communion it is hard to 
perceive. Itself ultimately identified with God, the only 
communion it can enjoy will be with its fellow divine 
identities. But, no, since they are all identified with 
God, communion becomes impossible unless one and the 
same thing can commune with itself. Is it that the 
aspiration is to enjoy God’s communion with himself? 

In the fifth place, it dwarfs individual development, 
especially in respect to the grace of charity, or love to 
man, which an inspired apostle represents as the greatest 
of the permanent Christian virtues. While it discounts 
this consummate grace, vain are its pretensions, however 


Tue Princirte or Source oF TuErotocy. 139 


extraordinary, to love for God. They are complemen- 
tary to each other, and can no more be disjoined than 
can the two tables of the moral law. Indeed it professes 
to sink individual development in the perfect abnegation 
of self; and yet — 

In the sixth place, it contradicts its own principle of , 
self-renunciation ; for it concentrates attention, interest, 
regard, hope, everything upon self. While it professes 
to abjure self, it seeks to exalt it to identity with God. 
No greater prize, no more glorious crown, can be coveted 
for one’s self than that he should get to be God. It was 
a towering ambition which led its possessor to sigh for 
other worlds to conquer, but it is overtopped by that of 
one — 


“Whose trust was with the Eternal to be deemed 
Kqual in strength.” 


Strange humility this, which seeks to be nothing in 
order to be everything, which descends below the finite 
in order to become the infinite! 

In the seventh place, it removes from the individual 
the influence of public sentiment, even when it exerts a 
legitimate and salutary force. It is true that the 
opinions of our fellow-men in regard to our views and 
our conduct constitute no ultimate standard of judg- 
ment, nor even an unerring temporary standard. The 
infallible and supreme norm is the favor or disfavor of 
God. But the righteous censure of our fellows is the 
shadow of his frown, their just approval the reflection 
of his smile. The one is a divinely appointed check to 
evil-doing, the other a stimulus to virtue. We are so 
weak that we stand in need of these extrinsic guards and 


140 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


inducements to prop our tottering resolutions, and steady 
our fluctuating feelings. Of one’s own motion, there- 
fore, without the compulsion of circumstances lying 
beyond his control, to cut himself off from these external 
helps which divine goodness provides, and to throw him- 
self solely upon his own unaided resources, the stability 
of his own character, the unsupported energy of his own 
will, is a mark not of wisdom, but of unutterable folly. 
This folly the ascetic discipline of mysticism enforces. 
_ In the eighth place, had this ascetic doctrine been in 
the past universally prevalent among the professedly 
pious the scheme of human evangelization would never 
have been initiated; and were it now universally 
adopted — and it ought to be if true — the whole system 
of missions, home and foreign, the chief glory of this 
modern age, would be doomed to absolute suppression. 
This was intimated in the indictment already made of 
the mystic’s position as sinking the development of love 
to men, but it deserves a separate and special emphasis. 
God, by his law, has bound us to bring forth the fruits 
of charity to our fellow-men, and Jesus Christ has com- 
manded his followers to go into all the world, and preach 
the gospel to every creature, but this mystic discipline, 
which tramples under foot God’s law while aspiring to 
identity with him, and soars on wings of ecstatic love 
beyond the low level of Christ’s benevolence, buries the 
hope of human evangelization in the dark cellars of its 
conventual retreats. It is not extravagant to say that, 
in this respect, its genius is the prophecy of the despair, 
its recesses the types of the caverns, of hell. 
. In the ninth place, the results it aims at are hopeless 


Ture Princrete or Source or THEonoey. 141 


of attainment, and those it actually produces furnish ° 
_ its historical refutation. It needs no argument to show, 
it is transparently evident from the very nature of the 
case, that no discipline, no sort of means adopted in 
folly, to lift the finite to identity with the infinite, to 
raise any creature, much less a sinful creature, to 
equality in any sense, qualified or unqualified, with God, 
can possibly be attended with success. Were there not 
a devil to whose craft and cunning the monstrous delu- 
sion can be attributed, it would have to be imputed to 
an insane derangement of the human brain. The result 
is equally hopeless when contemplated from the point 
of view of the Scriptures. According to them, the spir- 
itual union — and that is by no means identity — of a 
sinner with God can be effected only in those definitely 
revealed ways which are integral elements of the gospel 
scheme — the regeneration of the soul by the almighty 
power of the Holy Ghost; its free justification by faith 
in Christ, involving the pardon of guilt and the accept- 
ance of the person as righteous in God’s sight; repent- 
ance for sin and the cultivation and exercise of all the 
graces implanted and sustained in the soul by sanctity- 
ing giace; ‘and the use of all the means which God has 
appointed in his inspired Word. 

The ascetic mystic elects another road to holiness and 
happiness than that which the wisdom and mercy of , 
God have provided for sinners, and he is consequently 
inevitably doomed to failure. Jesus Christ, the one 
mediator between God and men, is able to save unto the 
uttermost all those that come unto God by him. All 
others, who in their carnal wisdom devise some self- 


142 Drscusstons or THroLocicat QuEsTIoNs. 


chosen way of approach, instead of rising to union with 
God — not to speak of identity with him — are destined 
to descend to companionship with devils, to sink to 
shame and everlasting contempt. Every road to God, 
except that which leads through Christ, his incarnate 
“ and erucified Son, is patrolled by ministers of vengeance 
and scoured by storms of wrath. The cross of Jesus is 
the only sign-board which points the way to heaven. 
The cloistered mystic, moreover, forgets that in his 
vain attempt to retire from the world and to bar it out, 
he bolts and locks in sin with himself. It twines itself 
about the roots of his soul; it sinks its claws like those 
of a ferocious beast into the very vitals of his being. It 
is not his essence, indeed, but it is the skin in which his 
essence is clothed. It is as close to it as is the skin of 
the body to its muscles. It is not enough, then, that he 
should mortify and even flagellate his body in order to 
subdue the power of sin, he must flay his very soul itself. 
In order to expel sin from himself, he must expel him- 
self; to get rid of it, he must get rid of himself. The 
pictures which a sinful imagination paints of forbidden 
objects inflame the passions just as though those objects 
themselves were presented to the eye of sense; and the 
fires of lust blaze up from an inward volcano, the flames 
of which no sedatives of passive mediatation can assuage, 
no virtuous resolutions can restrain, no aspirations to 
identity with God can quench. This, as is related in 
ecclesiastical history, was the actual experience of the 
great Latin Father and scholar, Jerome. “Finally,” 
\ says Neander, speaking of the case of Heron, “he felt 
within himself such a fire, such a restless fever, that he 


Tur Prirncrete or Source oF Turoitoey. 143 


could no longer endure to remain in his cell. He fled 
from the desert to Alexandria, and there plunged into a 
directly opposite course of life. He was a frequent 
visitor at the theatre, the circus, and the houses of 
entertainment.” “This, too,” he says in a note, “was 
no infrequent an occurrence, that the monks, to escape 
their inward temptations, forsook their cells, and ran 
about from one place to another.” 1 Even when the 
temptations to grosser sins may be resisted, the direct 
result is to the self-inflation of spiritual pride. Simeon 
Stylites was rebuked on this very account by Nilus, 
another distinguished pillar-saint; and he, no doubt, 
drew upon his own experience. 

The argument might easily be prosecuted farther, but 
enough has been said to evince the unscripturalness and 
worthlessness of monastic mysticism. 

(3) Let us, lastly, examine the position of the reli-//( 3) 
gious mystic. In entering upon this aspect of the 
subject, let us disembarrass it, at the outset, of a diffi- 
culty which tends to obscure it. We must distinguish 
between those who are really mystics, and those evan- 
gelical or orthodox Protestants to whom that name has 
often been applied by their opponents as one of reproach. 
It has always been the custom of rationalists and mod- 
erates to stigmatize evangelical believers as mystics and 
pietists and fanatics. Especially is cautious discrimina- 
tion to be used in judging of what was called mysticism 
in Germany. In many cases it was the legitimate 
reaction of a spiritual piety against the dominant ration- 
alism which was destroying the vitals of genuine 

*Ch. Hist., Vol. II., pp. 239, 240. Torrey’s Trans. 


144 Discussions or THEroLogicaL Questions. 


religion. We have a graphic portraiture of the rise and 
influence of rationalism in Germany in the eloquent 
preface of Dr. Leonard Woods, the younger, to his 
Translation of Knapp’s Theology: 


“Theologians, it is said, have no choice left them, and must 
adopt the splendid results which are every day disclosed in all 
departments of knowledge; and if they would not suffer theology 
to fall into contempt, must admit some compromise between its 
antiquated doctrines and the rapid progress of light. To effect 
this compromise is the office assigned to modern rationalism by 
one of its ablest apologists... . . As to the advantages of this 
compromise — what has really been accomplished by this far- 
famed rationalism, after all its promises? It professed friendship 
for Christianity, but has proved its deadly foe; standing within 
the pale of the church, it has been in league with the enemy with- 
out, and has readily adopted everything which infidelity could 
engender, and as studiously rejected everything which true phil- 
osophy has done to confirm the truths of revelation. It promised 
to save theology from contempt; and how has this promise been 
performed? In the days of Spener, theology was the Queen of 
Sciences, so acknowledged by the mouth of Bacon, Leibnitz, Haller 
and others—their chosen oracles. She wore the insignia of 
divinity, and ‘filled her odorous lamp’ at the very original fountain 
of light. But in an evil hour, she took this flattering rationalism 
to her bosom. Now, stript of every mark of divinity, cut off from 
her native sources of light, and thrust out into the dark, this 
Foolish Virgin is compelled to say to her sister sciences, ‘Give me 
of your oil: for my lamp is gone out.’ ” 


He then goes on to depict the results which followed 
the ascendency of this rationalizing spirit. As rational- 
ism professed to be a recoil from what it termed a 
traditional and lifeless orthodoxy, so it produced a 
counter movement against its excesses — a protest of the 
godly element in the church against its naturalistic and 


1 Bretschneider. 


Tur Princrerte or Sourcse or Turonoey. 145 
revolutionary method of interpreting Scripture, its exal- 
tation of reason above the Word of God as the only and 
supreme rule of faith and duty, and its compromise of 
supernatural truth with the hypotheses of philosophy 
and the conclusions of science. Those who thus endea- 
vored to save the ark of revealed truth from the hand 
of human speculation, and to cleave to the authoritative 
standard of the Scriptures, were, in turn, regarded by 
the rationalists with contempt, and ridiculed by them 
as bigoted enthusiasts to whom the opprobrious epithet 
of pietists was applied. It cannot be doubted that in the 
early resiliency from the reign of rationalism the real 
spirituality of the Lutheran Church was to be found in 
the ranks of those who were reproached as mystics. But 
so far as the opponents of the rationalistic system were 
evangelical or orthodox Protestants, it was impossible 
that they could with truth have been characterized as 
mystics, for the obvious reason that whereas it is the 
specific difference of the mystic to deny the completeness 
of the Scriptures, it is that of the orthodox Protestant 


to affirm it. No true Protestant can consistently belong , 


to the school of mysticism. 


One extreme, however, is almost sure to breed another. 


There were those who in the rebound from rationalism 
were not content to stop on the safe, middle ground of 
the true Protestant. Chafing against the restraints of 
scriptural doctrine, and the rules of the church, and not 
satisfied with the warm emotions and exercises of a 
regulated piety, they leaned upon what they claimed to 


be new revelations of the Spirit, rejoiced in an inner ’ 


light, gave themselves up to excited and ecstatic feelings, 
10 


— 


146 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


and became not only enthusiasts, but bigoted, and, in 
some cases, wild and dangerous, enthusiasts. These 
were the mystics proper. Again came reaction. The 
pendulum vibrated to the opposite extreme. Many, dis- 
gusted with the excesses of mysticism, abandoned it, and, 
passing by the conservative position of orthodox Protest- 
antism, threw themselves into the frigid embrace of 
rationalism. Extremes meet. And one in passing from 
this painful picture of antagonistic parties can hardly 
fail to note how, marching by different roads and from 
opposite directions, they meet at a common rendezvous, 
and join hands in a united opposition to the great 
Protestant canon of the infallibility and supremacy of 
the sacred Scriptures. The cold and calculating ration- 
alist and the emotional and visionary inysti¢e are at one. 
‘They join forces in attacking God’s truth, Let them 
fight on. Hurled back, as they certainly will be, from 
this impregnable citadel, every man’s hand will be 
turned against his fellow in the unnatural combina- 
tion. 

Mysticism, as has already been remarked, is capable 
of being reduced to rationalism, the essence of which is 
that reason is the source of theology; for, if the Protest- 
, ant position can be proved, that there is no other source 

of a true theology than the Scriptures, as the mystic 
professes to discard them as complete and ultimate, he 
must find that source either in the authority of the 
church, or in reason. He rejects the church; therefore, 
he must logically appeal to reason. This is rendered 
clear by the consideration that his attempts to formulate 
‘ his theology, however professedly derived, must be made 


~ 


Tue PriIncIPLe og Source or Turonocy. 147 


by the logical reason. So was it with Schleiermacher _ 
and his theology of the feelings; and so is it with the 


mystics who pretend to new supernatural revelations 
made by the Spirit, apart from the Scriptures. 

The distinctive position of the religious mystic com- 
ing now to be directly considered, the question which 
first meets us is, What is that position? In answer to 
that question, we must principally appeal to the doctrine 
of the Quakers, if for no other reason, for these: that 
they are a living sect, and that they are at the farthest 
remove from the philosophical tendencies of the school 
of mysticism. 

It must be observed, too, in order to clear our way, 
that the question is not now as to the codrdinacy of faith 
with the Scriptures in furnishing the rule of religion. 
That position, according to the statement of Prof. Seth, 
in his article on mysticism in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, was held by some of the German mystics. But in 


=~ 


a 


this they were not peculiar. Many of the professedly : 


orthodox Lutheran theologians have held, and still, hold, 


that view. Let it now suffice only to say that there are . 


two insuperable difficulties in that doctrine. The first is, 
that faith presupposes the Scriptures, upon which it 
relies. It cannot, therefore, be of codordinate authority 
with them. The second is, that the witness of the Spirit 


in the believer’s consciousness is a testimony borne to the , 


truth in the Scriptures, and, therefore, it also presup- 
poses them. But this question will not here be pursued 
farther, as it properly belongs to the consideration of 
the Protestant position touching the source of theology 
— the rule of faith and duty. 


< 


148 Discussions or THEOLoGicaL QuESTIONS. 


The question then returns, What is the distinetive 
position of the religious mystics — the Quakers espe- 
cially — with which we now have to do? The answer 
it is somewhat difficult fairly to give, inasmuch as they 
have no acknowledged symbolical standards to which 
appeal can be made. But, if we may rely upon the 
accounts given by representative writers, and the general 
opinion of those best acquainted with their beliefs and 

_ practices, their distinctive position is: that there is an 

' “inner light,” to be discriminated from the dictates of 
natural conscience, consisting in new and supernatural 
revelations made by the Holy Spirit to individuals, 
which are complementary to the Scriptures as a rule of 
faith and duty. The Scriptures are confessed to be a 
revelation from God; but they are not a complete rule 
of faith and directory of duty. The defect is supplied 
by the Spirit, who, apart from the Scriptures, commu- 
nicates new views of faith and duty. 

The nice question arises, Do they hold that the Spirit, 

, apart from the Scriptures, reveals new original truth — 
that is, truth not revealed in the Scriptures? Let us 
admit, what Barclay asserts, that anything contrary to 
the Scriptures is rejected by them. But that proves 
nothing upon the question whether new, additional truth 
may be communicated which, in the judgment of the 
recipient, does not contradict the Scriptures. The 
Church of England holds that the church may decree 
rites and ceremonies, not prescribed in the Seriptures, 
provided that they are not contrary to their teaching. 
This is asserting for the church what the Quakers claim 
* for the Spirit as to truth and duty. Both are, pro tanto, 


~ 


Tue PrrincrPLe or Source or THEotoey. 149 


un-Protestant, but of the two the Quaker has the advan- 
tage. 

The question is, whether the Quakers hold that the 
Spirit reveals truth, which while not contrary to the 
Scriptures, is new, is additional to the teaching of the 
Scriptures, is, in a word, original — something more 
than an exposition, an illumination, an enforcement, of 
the old truth, the very truth, revealed in the Scriptures. 
That they do, may be argued from their catholic views 
and their general practice, notwithstanding some par- 
ticular assertions of certain writers. 

In the first place, do they, or not, admit with orthodox 
Protestants, the completeness, the perfection, the su- 
premacy, the ultimate authority of the inspired Scrip- 
tures as a rule of faith and duty? If they do, their 
position has always and on all hands been grievously 
misconceived and misrepresented. If they do not, what 
completes the rule of faith and duty? They themselves 
reply, New and immediate revelations of the Spirit. 
How can these revelations complete the rule except by 
the addition of what the rule itself does not embrace ? 
What does that imply, if not the communication of 
original matter? Their rule is, therefore, not a simple 
one — that of the Scriptures alone, but a composite one, 
namely, the Scriptures and the immediate revelations of 
the Spirit. The case is like that of the Romanists, 
mutatis mutandis. The latter hold a composite rule, 
namely, the Scriptures and tradition — tradition adding 
to the Scriptures what the Scriptures do not contain. 
What, if Newman’s theory of historical development, 
proceeding by substantive additions to the Scriptures, 


a 


150 Discussions or THEroLocicaL Questions. 


was coldly received by the authorities of Rome, it told 
the truth as to what had actually been done. And what, 
if some Quakers say that they receive nothing contrary 
to “the old doctrines and the old gospel,” if they actually 
make additions to them ? 

In the second place, they obliterate the distinction 


. insisted upon by orthodox Protestants between the in- 


spiration of the prophets, the apostles and the evangelists 
on the one hand, and that of pious Christians now, on the 
other. Confessedly, then, the authority to communicate 
truth is, in both cases, the same. What is the office, 
what the use of this later and common inspiration, if the 
communication of new, original matter is denied to it? 
It sinks to the level of the Spirit’s dllwmination, which 
every Protestant both allows and maintains; but that 
reduction of its dignity and force is not admitted. 

The inquiry, moreover, occurs whether this claim of 
inspiration does not actually involve the claim to teach 
new truth? When one, claiming this inspiration of the 
Spirit teaches his fellow-worshippers that there is no 


_ need of a regular ministry, and of observing the sacra- 


ments of baptism and the Lord’s supper, he teaches a 
totally new, exceptional, extraordinary construction of 
the Scriptures. Not only so, he teaches doctrine which 
the Seriptures do not deliver. Whatever may be plausi- 
bly pleaded in favor of the restriction of the command to 
baptize to the apostles, the same plea cannot possibly be 
urged in regard to the Lord’s supper; for Paul, in the 
eleventh chapter of First Corinthians, delivers the Sav- 
iour’s command, “This do in remembrance of me,” to 
the Corinthian church; and if it bound that church it 


Tuer PRINCIPLE OR SouRCE oF THEOLOGY. 151 


binds the whole church. There is a claim to new truth 
here. The new revelation communicates new matter. 
The assertion of inspiration, it may be said in passing, 
is negatived by the contradiction of the old truth con- 
tained in the Scriptures, and is also invalidated by the 
absence of those miraculous credentials which invariably 
accompany the gift of inspiration. The Quakers blow 
hot and cold with the same breath. Barclay denies the 
addition of new truth to the Scriptures; the teaching 
and practice of the Quakers affirm it. It may be said 
that the denial of addition holds only of the system of 
doctrines, of the great outlines of the gospel; but one 
who denies a stated ministry and the sacraments ap- 
pointed by Christ both takes away Scripture doctrine, 
and, by substitution, adds another in its place. 

But whether these modern mystics do or do not hold 
to the communication of new, original truth by the 
Spirit apart from the Scriptures, one thing is clear, that 
they do not maintain the fundamental Protestant doc- 
trine that the Bible is the sole, sufficient and perfect 
rule of faith and duty. There is also another rule by 
which their feet are guided. The old genius of mysti- 


x 


cism is infused into them. They get into God, or God, 


gets into them, by another way than through the Scrip- 
tures. The inner light is not that Word which is a lamp 
to the feet and a light to the path. The Spirit performs 
his revealing office “objectively” and “independently.” 

A few remarks are submitted in regard to this position 
of the religious mystic: 

First. The new, immediate revelations of the Spirit 
are asserted to be inspiring and to possess the authority 


< 


152 Discussions or THEroLtocicaL Questions. 


of inspiration. We demand, must demand, the miracu- 
lous credentials of inspiration. They are not presented. 
It is said that they were necessary for prophets and 
apostles, but they are not needed by the Quakers! All 
is changed now. Who authorized the change? Cer- 
tainly not God in his Word. His Spirit would not con- 
tradict him, would not contradict himself, speaking in 
the Scriptures. Who, then, authorizes the change? The 
only answer is, The mystic, through his reason. The 
alternative is, miracles or no inspiration, Miracles, 
there are none; therefore, no inspiration. 

Secondly. These inspired revelations are excluded 
by the miraculous proof that the Scriptures are a com- 
plete revelation from God. In the first place, they 
themselves assert the fact, as has already been proved. 
In the second place, they exclude other revelations. “To 
the law and the testimony; if they speak not according 
to them, it is because there is no light in them.” If they 
speak according to them, they are not new revela- 
tions. 

Thirdly. There could be no harmony, much less 


. unity, in these professedly new, extra-scriptural revela- 


tions. Every man would have his doctrine. The pos- 
sibility of a standard to the church would be barred. 
There being no one, homogeneous, self-consistent court 
of judgment, individual license of opinion and action 
must obtain, and the floodgates of fanaticism would be 
thrown open. 

It is usually the case that error is associated with 


‘ some truth. This is true in the instance of religious 


mysticism. What is the truth which is, to a greater or a 


Tur PrinciPLe or Source oF TuEotoey. 153 


less extent, incorporated into that system? It is the, 
doctrine of the supernatural illumination of the Holy 
Spirit. This is distinguishable from what the old 
divines denominated the “physical influence” of the 
Spirit, that by which he immediately and efficiently 
regenerates the soul, and causally operates in the pro- 
duction of faith and the other graces of the renewed 
nature. Were the illumination and guidance of the 
Spirit what the Quaker contends for, unencumbered 
with the peculiarities of mysticism, no Protestant would 
quarrel with him. It is a question of importance, how 
far we are entitled to implore and to expect the illumi- 
nating influence of the Holy Spirit. Some leading prin- 
ciples must be noted. 

First. The written Word of God is the only, the 
complete, the supreme rule of faith and practice. 

Secondly. The supreme judge of religious contro y 
versies is the Holy Ghost speaking in the Scriptures. 

Thirdly. The Word is never to be dissociated from | 
the Spirit, nor the Spirit from the Word. This is per- 
haps the greatest canon of Protestantism: not the Word 
only, not the Spirit only, but the Word and the v 
Spirit. 

Fourthly. Each individual has the right, and is in 
duty bound to search the Scriptures in dependence upon 
the Holy Spirit; and, in the last resort, he is responsible : 
only to God, as final judge, for the conclusions which he 
conscientiously adopts. This is the great right of private 
judgment — thus stated and restrained. 

Fifthly. Believers, recognizing these principles, and _ 
acting upon these conditions, are entitled to derive good 


< 


- 


154 Discussions or TuroLocican Questions. 


and necessary inferences from the express statements of 
the Word, which inferences are not explicitly enunci- 
ated, but implicitly contained, in those statements; and 
such inferences possess the validity and authority of the 
Word itself. 

All this, to a true Protestant, is sufficiently clear; but 
there are special questions of duty in regard to which 
' the Scriptures only furnish general principles, laws, 
commands, directions. The inquiry then arises, May we 
legitimately ask and look for the illumination of the 
Spirit when we are perplexed with reference to the solu- 
tion of such questions? Or, is the illumination of the 
Spirit always mediated through some truth or truths of 
the Word, so that where the Word furnishes no direc- 
tions as to specific duties, we are debarred from expect- 
ing that illumination ? 

_ There are certain questions which, it is true, are of a 

special character, but which ought not to be referred to 
this category; the question, for example, Am I entitled 
to believe myself a child of God? Here the Spirit may 
be expected to teach duty through the express truths of 
‘ the Scriptures, whether he applies the marks of con- 
version and sanctification indicated in the Word, or 
bears his testimony immediately to the soul. 

There is another class of special questions of duty, 
* which may be decided in the exercise of an enlightened 
conscience and judgment directed by the indications of 
providence; as, for instance, whether one who is a 
preacher should labor in this or that field. The election 
, is between two courses, neither of which would involve 
sin. And, while it is always right to implore divine 


Tur PrincieLe or Source or THEotoey. 155 


guidance, the Quaker is extravagant in maintaining that _ 
in such cases one may expect to be assured of the infal- © 
lible guidance of the Spirit. 

But it must be confessed that there is still another 
class of special questions which are not to be settled in , 
this way; the question, for example, whether or not one 
is called to preach the gospel. The Scriptures give a 
general command enforcing the preaching of the gospel. 
But the call to preach is not addressed to all believers, 
nor to all who, to the eye of natural judgment, may seem 
to be qualified for the office. The Word does not nomi- 
nate the individual, does not say to A B, It is your duty 
to preach. 

Now, in regard to such questions these principles may 
be laid down: In the first place, the illumination of the , 
Spirit is always in concurrence with the truth in the 
Word. In the second place, it is not in such cases as 
that above-mentioned mediately given through some 
specific declaration of Scripture; nevertheless, we are ‘ 
entitled to ask and expect that it be immediately im- 
parted. Never without the Scriptures; but sometimes — 
not through some special declaration of the Scriptures — ~ 
such is the formula which seems to me legitimate. In 
the third place, sincerity is absolutely required to con- | 
dition prayer for the Spirit’s illumination. 

The case deserves to be considered in which one is 
impressed with the conviction that God has, in some ‘ 
extraordinary and preternatural way, seemed to indicate 
his will. 

If these impressions lead io results inconsistent with , 
the Scriptures, or with a clear moral sentiment of a 


< 


” 
‘ 
: 


156 Discusstons or TuroLocicat Questions. 


fundamental character, they are to be rejected as cer- 
tainly not from the Holy Spirit. 
We must, in such cases, be sure that the impressions 


, could not have been produced by natural causes, or by 


the action of our own minds, as, for instance, by such an 
excited or exalted state of the imagination as leads it to 
objectify its images. 

In dealing with the ignorant, especially those who 
cannot read the Scriptures, let us endeavor to beat them 
off from trusting in any impressions, suggestions, 


, dreams, visions, supposed apparitions, and the like, 


which, in the judgment of godly teachers, contradict the 
divine Word. Let us urge them to consult competent, 
educated, spiritual guides. 

But, on the other hand, we should be careful not to 
limit the sovereign will, or the merciful interpositions 
of the Holy Spirit, who, in defect of scriptural know- 
ledge on the part of some persons, may be pleased to 
vouchsafe extraordinary manifestations of his grace, 
and providence. Nor should we so roughly deal with 
such persons as to drive them from confidence in our 
ministrations, and shut them up to dependence upon 
themselves or incompetent spiritual guides. 

We should insist that as a rule we are guided by the 


_ Spirit speaking through the Word, but refrain from 
' dogmatically affirming that God never does immediately 


cial 


deal with the individual. There have been mysterious 
facts of experience which are sufficient to deter us from 
rash dogmatism upon the subject. Still, let us hold that 
even in these extraordinary cases the Spirit teaches in 
concurrence with the Word, and that no individual is 
constituted by them an inspired or an infallible person. 


Tur PrincieLe or Source oF TuEoLocy. 157 


RomaniIsM. 


V. In proceeding farther to examine the position of 


those who deny the completeness of a supernatural reve- ” 
lation, Romanism comes to be considered. It denies the , 


completeness of the Scriptures as a supernatural revela- 
tion, for it supplements them by tradition. It also 
denies that the supreme judge of religious controversies 


is the Holy Ghost speaking in the Scriptures, and, on ° 


the contrary, affirms that the church, meaning the Ro- 
man Oatholie Church, now speaking authoritatively 
through its popes, is that supreme judge. If, therefore, 
it cannot be proved that tradition is an inspired and 
consequently inerrant part of the rule of faith and duty; 
and if it cannot be proved that the popes are inspired, 
and for that reason infallible, the assignment of Roman- 
ism to the category of rationalism is justified. Tradi- 
tion, so far as it is uninspired, must be the product of 
the human reason, and the ex cathedra decisions of 
popes, as uninspired, can be nothing but the judgments 
of their own minds. 

It is hardly necessary at this day to enter elaborately 
and minutely into the discussion of the question in 
relation to Romanism. The controversy has been so 
long, so learnedly, so exhaustively conducted that no- 
thing new can be substantially added. The case is, as a 
theoretical one, closed. The book is sealed, until provi- 
dential developments shall shed practical anid convincing 
light upon its contents. The battle is henceforth to be 
fought upon the fields of polities and of blood. 

This discussion will consist of two parts: Furst, a 


7 


158 Discusstons or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


presentation of the argument against Romanism, with 
reference to the particular question about which we are 
engaged — namely, the principle of theology; and, 
secondly, a consideration of the bearing of prophecy 
upon the career of Romanism as an actual, historie sys- 
tem. 

I. Let us examine the claims of Romanism in regard 
‘ to the rule of faith and duty, and to the supreme judge 
in all religious controversies. It is requisite to deter- 
mine its position in relation to these points; and their 
consideration will comprehensively embrace the whole 
question. 

1. What, then, is the position of the Romanist touch- 
ing the rule of faith and duty ? 

It will be seen by a direct appeal to the authorities of 
Romanism that its rule of faith and duty is a composite 
one, consisting of the Scriptures and tradition, and that 
these parts of the rule are codrdinate with each other, 
and to be regarded with equal veneration. The follow- 
ing is the decree of the Council of Trent at its fourth 
session : 


“Sacrosancta, ecumenica, et generalis tridentina synodus, in 
Spiritu Sancto legitimo congregata, presidentibus in ea eisdem 
tribus apostolice sedis legatis, hoc sibi perpetuo ante oculos pro- 
ponens, ut, sublatis erroribus, puritas ipsa evangelii in ecclesia 
conservetur; quod promissum ante per prophetas in Scripturis 
Sanctis, Dominus noster Iesus Christus Dei Filius, proprio ore 
primum promulgavit, deinde per suos apostolos, tanquam fontem 
omnis et salutaris veritatis et morum discipline, omni creature 
predicari iussit; perspiciensque hance veritatem et disciplinam 
contineri in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus, que ab 
ipsius Christi ore ab apostolis accepte, aut ab ipsis apostolis, 
Spiritu Sancto dictante, quasi per manus tradite, ad nos usque 


Tue Prrycrezte or Source oF THeotoey. 159 


pervenerunt: orthodoxorum patrum exempla secuta, omnes libros 
tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti, cum utriusque unus Deus sit 
auctor, necnon traditiones ipsas, tum ad fidem, tum ad mores per- 
tinentes, tanquam vel oretenus a Christo vel a Spiritu Sancto dic- 
tatas, et continua successione in ecclesia catholica conservatas, 
pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia suscipit et veneratur.”* 


The Professio Fidei Tridentine speaks expressly on 
the subject in the following articles: 


“JJ. Apostolicas et ecclesiasticas traditiones, reliquasque ejus- 
dem Ecclesie observationes et constitutiones firmissime admitto et 
amplector. 

“TIT. Item sacram Scripturam juxta eum sensum, quem tenuit 
et tenet sancta mater Ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et 
interpretatione sacrarum Scripturarum, admitto,” etc.’ 


1“The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of 
- Trent — lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the same three 
legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein—keeping this 
always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of 
the gospel be preserved in the church; which (gospel) before 
promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with his own 
mouth, and then commanded to be preached by his apostles to 
every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth and moral 
discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are ; 
eontained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions 
which, received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, ' 
or from the apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have 
come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to 
hand: [the Synod] following the example of the orthodox fathers, 
receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety and rev- 
erence, all the books both of the Old and the New Testament — 
seeing that one God is the author of both—as also the said 
traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as 
having been dictated, either by Christ’s own word of mouth, or by 
the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a con- 
tinuous succession.” 

*“TT. I most steadfastly admit and embrace apostolic and 


160 Drscusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


The same position is definitely maintained in Chapter 
II. Of Revelation, in the dogmatic decrees of the Vati- 
ean Council, held in 1870: 


“Hee porro supernaturalis revelatio, secundum universalis 
Ecclesie fidem, a sancta Tridentina Synodo declaratam, continetur 
in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus, que ipsius Christi 
ore ab apostolis accept, aut ab ipsis Apostolis Spiritu Sancto 
dictante quasi per manus tradite, ad nos usque pervenerunt.” * 


The Roman Catholic theologians have, of course, 


' taught the same doctrine with that contained in these 


authoritative symbols of their church. It would be 
superfluous to cite them. Let it suffice to quote the 
remarkable words of Perrone, one of the ablest and most 
recent of them, “Hine duplex illa regula et ecclesize 
magisterio subordinata credendorum et agendorum, 
Scriptura et Traditio, que ad nos usque dimanavit.” ? 
This statement is noteworthy on two accounts: First, it 
maintains the unity of the composite rule of faith and 
duty — it is a two-fold rule; and it co-ordinates the two 


ecclesiastic traditions, and all other observances and constitutions 
of the same church. 

“IIT. I also admit the holy Scriptures, according to that sense 
which our holy mother church has held and does hold, to which 
it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the 
Scriptures,” ete. 

“Further, this supernatural revelation, according to the uni- 
versal belief of the church, declared by the sacred Synod of Trent, 
is contained in the written books and unwritten traditions which 
have come down to us, having been received by the apostles from 
the mouth of Christ himself, or from the apostles themselves, by 
the dictation of the Holy Spirit, have been transmitted, as it were, 
from hand to hand.” 

2 Prelec. Theol., Vol. II., Pars. IL., p. 6. 


Tur Princrexe or Source or Turonoay. 161 


elements, Scripture and tradition, of which that one rule 
consists; and, secondly, it subordinates the whole rule 
to the authoritative teaching of the church. 

That the codrdination and equality of the two com- 
ponent parts of the rule of faith and duty is the doctrine 
of Romanism will be made still more distinctly to appear 
from the following words of Perrone, “Par Scripture ac 
traditionis auctoritas sit, et ex aequo possit theologus 
tanquam ex fonte scienti hujus nostre proprio argu- 
menta promere sive ad dogmata constabilienda, sive ad 
aliena placita refutanda.” } 

Another question which it behooves to settle by a cita- 


tion of authority is that in regard to the office of tradi- © 


tion. The answer is given by Perrone in one compre- 
hensive sentence, “Preeter Scripturas necessario admitti 
traditiones divine ac dogmatice debent ab illis plane 


distinete, si absque ejusmodi traditionibus nobis con- ¥ 


stare nequeat fide divina tum de numero, tum de canoni- 
citate divinaque sacrorum librorum inspiratione, aut de 
dogmatico legitimoque eorundem sensu, tum de pluribus 
aliis articulis fidei quos nobiscum protestantes profiten- 
tur.” ? He then goes on, under the head of the Necessity 
of Tradition, to vindicate articulately the three grounds 
of its necessity which he has mentioned. The office of 
tradition, accordingly, is: To settle the canon of Serip- 
ture; to clear up the obscurity of Seripture and deter- 
mine its sense; and to supplement the contents of Serip- 
ture, to supply matter which it does not furnish — arti- 
eles in regard to things concerning which it is silent. 


1 Tbid., p. 8. ? Tbid., p. 248. 
ji 


162 Duscusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


The way is now open to collect, in the light of his own 
testimony, the position of the Romanist in relation to the 
rule of faith and duty. It is: That there is one two 
fold rule, consisting of two coérdinate and equal parts, 
Seripture and tradition; that Scripture is written, tra- 
dition unwritten; and that the office of tradition is to 
settle the canon of Scripture, to determine its sense, and 
to supplement its doctrines. 

First, then, the question before us is in regard to 
tradition. 

1. The arguments for tradition are — 

_ (1) Tradition is necessary to supplement the Serip- 
tures. The answer is, first, that the Scriptures are com- 
plete, and, therefore, need no supplement; secondly, 
. that the Scriptures themselves forbid their being supple- 
mented. The argument with reference to the complete- 
ness of the Scriptures as a rule of faith and duty was 
prosecuted in the preceding discussion of mysticism. 
There it was shown that the mystic and the Romanist 
make common cause in their denial of the completeness 
of the Scriptures. The answer, therefore, to the one in 
that matter is the answer to the other. 

(2) Tradition is necessary to interpret the Scriptures. 

First. The Scriptures make no mention of tradition 
as an interpreter of themselves. If then we repair to it 
for direction, we presumptuously elect a guide whom 
God has not appointed, and we may expect that both it 
and we will fall into the ditch. This in fact has been the 
fate of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Secondly. Tradition, from the nature of the case, is 

more obscure than the Scriptures. It is non-existent at 


THe Princrerz or Source or Turonoay. 163 


: a a 
one time, existent at another, flexible, fluctuating, inde- 
terminate, and it requires the ex cathedra interpretation 
of its own meaning by the infallible representative of 


the church’s authority. To expound the Scriptures by _ 


tradition is to interpret the less obscure by the more 
obseure. This is absurd. 


Thirdly. It vacates pro tanto the self-interpreting \ 


function of the Scriptures. We are commanded to 
search the Scriptures, and in the light of that study to 
determine whether any doctrine professing to be scrip- 
tural is really so or not. Rome bids us search the tradi- 


<< 


tions to ascertain even the meaning of Scripture; and 


that notwithstanding the undeniable fact that tradition 
is greatly less accessible than the Scriptures, If it be 
replied that we are to consult tradition only when the 
Scriptures fail to explicate their own meaning, this is 
manifestly to make tradition superior in authority to 
Scripture. But we have seen that Rome makes Scrip- 
ture and tradition codrdinate elements of the same rule. 
How one can be codrdinate with the other, and at the 
same time subordinate to it, it is difficult to perceive. 
Further, it has been shown that Trent decrees that Scrip- 
ture and tradition are to be received with equal love and 
reverence — pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia. How 
this is possible, when tradition is constituted an authori- 
tative interpreter of Scripture, it is also hard to see. 
Perhaps an infallible resolution of these difficulties 
might assist our dull perception. 

Fourthly. The interpretative function assigned to 


tradition, to the extent to which it is invoked, supplants — 


the interpretative office of the Holy Ghost. Our divine 


< 


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‘ the eternal hills whence cometh their help. Thatisnot — 


164 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QuESTIONs. 


Master, when he was about to consummate his work on 
earth, promised to his disciples the Holy Spirit to guide 
them into all truth. “I will pray the Father,” said he, 
“and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may 
abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth.” 
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
things.” Lest it be said that this promise was peculiarly 
made to the apostles, hear the Apostle John, in his first 
epistle, applying the same consolation to all believers, 


“But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye 


know all things.” “But the anointing which ye have 
received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that 


any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth 


you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even 
as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” Who can 
doubt that this heavenly unction, proceeding from the 
ascended Prophet of the church, is the Holy Ghost? 
Jesus points us to the Holy Spirit as the interpreter of 
Scripture; Rome to tradition. But, says the Romanist, 
the Spirit is the interpreter of both Scripture and tradi- 
tion. Is thisso? We had supposed that the Pope is the 
authoritative interpreter of them both. Yes (he rejoins) 
but the pope is inspired by the Spirit, so as to be an 
infallible interpreter of Scripture. Were that so, how 
many of the myriads of perplexed believers and con- 
victed sinners could go to his throne of grace, that they 
might obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of 
need? Only a fortunate few could be able to repair to 


necessary, it will be said; the guiding influence of the 


Tue Princrece or Source or TuEeotoey. 165 


pope circulates everywhere through priests, as the blood 
flows from the head to the whole body. Yes, but al- 
though unhappily priests dwell near us everywhere, they 
do not abide in us; and our Master promises to us an — 
interpreter of his Word who is to be in us, and abide 
with us. Neither tradition, nor pope, nor priests can 
be a substitute for him in his direct communion with 
the soul. The charge is a heavy one, heavy because true, 
that Rome by her traditions supplants the Holy Ghost, 
and, so far as she can, robs the church and the world of 
his interpreting office. Whether the inspiration of the 
pope, the hinge of this matter, can be proved will be 
considered when we come to infallibility. 

Fifthly. In our ignorance we may imagine that it 
would be very profitable to the church to have with her | 
the apostles in person to furnish inspired interpretations 
of their writings. God in his wisdom has seen other- 
wise. Instead of being satisfied with this ordination of 
his providence, the Roman Catholic Church seeks to \ 
supply the defect of personal apostolic oral instruction 
by tradition. It is claimed that the traditions of the 
oral teachings of the apostles are faithful exponents of 
those teachings. But here a troublesome dilemma con- 
fronts the Romanist. He holds that there are personal 
successors of the apostles. Of course, these men must 
be possessed of apostolic gifts, or the claim in a sham. 
If so, they are qualified, just as the apostles would be if : 
personally present, to interpret the Scriptures by their 
viva voce instructions. Where, then, is the use of tradi- 
tion as an interpreter of Scripture? The law of parsi- - 
mony would exclude it. Why traditions of past oral 


166 Discussions or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


instructions of apostles, when we have present apostolic 
teaching? But the Romanist zealously contends for 
tradition. Where, then, is the use of personal successors 
of the apostles? The Romanist ought to elect one of the 
alternatives. They are mutually exclusive, but he elects 


, both. “He sees the contradictories with equal clearness, 


and contends for both with equal zeal.” The truth is, 
that it is alike vain to talk of personal successors of the 
apostles without apostolic credentials, and of tradition 
which faithfully represents oral deliverances made ages 
ago. The law of excluded middle does not operate in 
relation to these contradictories. There is a third alter- 
native which may be elected. It is, that we have the 
apostles in their writings, and we have the promise of 
the Holy Spirit to guide us in the interpretation of those 
writings. 

Sixthly. The office of tradition in interpreting the 
Scriptures has failed to avert serious differences in the 
bosom of the Roman Catholic Church by which its 
boasted unity has been notoriously rent. Why, if tradi- 
tion interprets Scripture, have not all parties been har- 
monized by it? It has pretended to do what the Holy 
Spirit alone can accomplish, and, as a matter of course, 
it has signally failed. Like the Spartan boy, who under 
his cloak hid a fox gnawing at his vitals, Rome conceals 
the genius of internal discord within the folds of her 
scarlet robes. 

(3) Tradition is necessary to determine the canon of 
Scripture. 

First. Without pausing to criticise the unwarrant- 
able way in which Rome employs the terms canon of 


Ture PrincreLe or Source oF TuoEotocy. 167 


Scripture, let us notice that the question how the canon 


was settled is not now properly before us. The question » 


is, What is the rule of faith and duty? The Protestant — 


answers by saying, The Scriptures alone; the Romanist 
by saying, The Scriptures and tradition. He uses tra- 
dition to determine the canonicity of Scripture in order 
to instate Scripture as an integral element of his one 
composite rule of faith and duty. 

Secondly. He makes one part of the rule prove 
another part of itself — he makes tradition prove Serip- 
wre. But if this is done, why may not Scripture be 
invoked to prove tradition? And if so, the Romanist 
would travel in a circle. He would prove Scripture by 
tradition, and tradition by Scripture. Hardly would so 
acute a logician fall into so transparent a fallacy. But— 


Thirdly. The Romanist, as we shall see under the . 


next head, does that very thing. He does prove Scrip- | 


ture by tradition, and then turns round, and coolly 
proves tradition, at least partly, by Scripture. He is 
fond of travelling in circles, as will be made apparent 
as the discussion advances. One would infer that his 
argument is not progressive. 

Fourthly. The Romanist contends that the canon of 
Scripture is determined by tradition; the Protestant, 
that the canon was determined, in aceordance with 
miraculous evidence, by the Jewish, and the early Chris- 
tion church. Having been so determined, Scripture was 
itself the traditum, the thing handed down from the 
apostles, a deposit committed to the church to be trans- 
mitted from generation to generation. It was not to be 
proved by traditions of the oral teachings of the apostles. 


“A 


168 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QuEsTIONs. 


It was the written teachings of prophets and apostles — 
itself handed down from age to age. 

Fifthly. That the question of the canonical authority 
of the Scriptures, as one of fact, was settled by the 
early church is proved, not by traditions of the oral 
teachings of the apostles, but by history ecclesiastical 
and secular. 

(4) Tradition is proved by Scripture. 

The chief proof-texts on which reliance is placed to 
sustain this position are, 2 Thess. ii. 15 and iii. 6, 
“Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions 
which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our 
epistle.” ‘Now we command you, brethren, in the name 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves 
from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not 
after the tradition which he received of us.” 

First. The criticism is repeated that the Romanist 
reasons in a circle. He proves the authority of Serip- 
ture by tradition, and he proves the authority of tradi- 
tion by Scripture. 

Secondly. “Tradition, as intended by Paul in the 
passages cited (2 Thess. ii. 15 and iii. 6), signifies all 
his instructions, oral and written, communicated to those 
very people themselves, not handed down.” * No doubt, 
the oral instructions of the apostles, intrinsically con- 
sidered as they fell from their lips upon those who 
actually heard them, were of equal authority with their 
writings. And if we had those very oral instructions as 
originally delivered, they would be of the same authority 
with us. But it makes all the difference in the world 


*A, A, Hodge, Outl. Theol., p. 83, 


. wh 


ae 


Tur PrincrPLe or Source or THEeotoey. 169 


when those oral teachings are transmitted from mouth 
to mouth by those who did not personally listen to them. 
What guarantee is there, that after they have run the 
hazards of such a transmission they remain precisely 
what they were at first? None whatever. But on the 
contrary, the laws of human nature and the facts of uni- 
versal experience give the assurance that the original 
deliverances are changed and corrupted in the long 
process of transmission. This consideration would be 
checked had God assured us of their miraculous preser- 
vation from change. Where is such assurance given? 
Certainly not in the Scriptures. And where else could 
we expect to find it? How then can the Romanist appeal 
to the Scriptures as authorizing his traditions? They 
give absolutely no guarantee of their stability. We are 
shut up to the conclusion that the memorabilia of the ,, 
oral instructions of the apostles are utterly untrust- 
worthy, that those instructions, even when the fact of 
their delivery was patent to the contemporaries of the 
apostles, must have suffered serious mutilation through 
viva voce transmission. Such a Lesbian rule of doctrine 
and practice as oral tradition is out of the question. We 
demand an inflexible rule which will not accommodate 
itself to the fluctuations of views, times and cireum- 
stances. Such a rule of faith and duty is the written 
Word of God. That is a fixed and invariable quantity. 
It is stamped with the immutability of its Author. It 
deserves to be emphasized that the Scriptures never ¥ 
point us to tradition as a rule of faith and duty, or even 
as a part of that rule. They claim that office for them- 
selves. The meagre references which Romanists make 


4 
% e 


170 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


to them as appearing to teach the contrary avail them 
nothing. 

Thirdly. Whatever may be thought theoretically of 
the possible descent of some pure traditions from the 
apostles, it is monstrous to suppose that the Scriptures 
justify the actual traditions which swarm in the Roman 
Catholic system. It is monstrous to impute such a 
progeny to apostolic parentage. As well might the 
Acheron flow from the same springs with the River of 
Life. Speaking of the use made by Romanists of Paul’s 
injunction to the Thessalonians, Calvin says, “They act 
a still more ridiculous part in making it their aim to 
pass off, under this, the abominable sink of their own 
superstitions, as though they were the traditions of Paul. 
But farewell to these trifles, when we are in possession 
of Paul’s true meaning. And we may judge in part 
from this epistle what traditions he here recommends, 
for he says, whether by word, that is, discourse, or by 
epistle. Now, what do these epistles contain but pure 
doctrine, which overturns to the very foundation the 
whole of the papacy, and every invention that is at vari- 
ance with the simplicity of the gospel?” * 

Fourthly. It ought not to escape observation that the 
passage in Thessalonians from which Romanists chiefly 
derive their sanction for tradition follows upon the very 
heels of the apostle’s fearful description by prophetic 
anticipation of the development of their own corrupt 
and apostate system. Let those who doubt so amazing a 
fact read for themselves. Is it possible to conceive that 
the apostle who had just painted so grahpically the rise 


1CGomm., on Thess, in loco, 


Tue Principe or Source oF THEotocy. 171i 


and progress of the Roman defection should in the same 
passage have lent his apostolic authority to one of its 
worst elements? Did he not design to guard the church 
against its insidious approaches when he cautioned the 
Thessalonian Christians to hold the traditions which 
they had been taught, whether by word, or his epistle ? 
The Romanists attempt the extraordinary feat of turn- 
ing the apostle’s guns upon himself; to get from the 
battery which demolishes them the weapons of their 
defence. How blind are they whom God smites with 
judicial blindness! How infatuated they are — to quote 
the very context of the passage under consideration — 
upon whom he sends strong delusion that they may 
believe a lie! A part of that blindness and delusion 
consists in their denial of the applicability of the apos- 
tle’s dreadful portraiture to their own case. 

Fifthly. Instead of the Scriptures approving tradi- 
tion, they actually condemn it. At least they explicitly 
condemn it in one particular instance, and by necessary 
implication in all similar instances. The Pharisees and 
scribes approached Christ with the question, “Why walk 
not thy disciples according to the tradition of the 
elders?” His answer, in part, was, “Laying aside the 
commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men”; 
“full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye 
may keep your tradition”; “making the word of God 
of none effect through your tradition, which ye have 
delivered.” (Mark vii.) Our Saviour, it is true, ad- 
dressed his reproof specially to the Pharisees and scribes, 
but he enunciated a great principle of general applica- 
tion. It is that in religion and morals man has no right 


172 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


to command what God has not commanded. He has no 
right to make laws binding the conscience. That is the 
sole prerogative of God. On the other hand, human 
authority is incompetent to discharge the conscience 
from the obligation to keep God’s laws. No doctrine or 
precept, institution or practice, of a religious nature, is 
authoritative except it springs from God’s revealed will, 
and every one of them originating in that source is 
obligatory. The conclusion is, as bearing on the ques- 
tion in hand, that no oral or traditional law, no unwrit- 
ten religious code, is tolerated by divine authority. The 
principle operates as well in regard to the unwritten 
traditions of the Romanist, as to those of the Pharisee. 
The only authority binding the conscience of the church 
—that is, the only rule of faith and duty —is the 
written Word of God. It is noteworthy that the Lord 
Jesus uses convertibly the terms commandment of God 


ae and Word of God. The Scriptures, therefore, instead 


of sanctioning, condemn the unwritten traditions of 
Rome. 

To this it may be replied that the argument confounds 
two cases which are not susceptible of common predica- 
tion; that the apostles, not like “the elders,” were 
inspired, and were consequently empowered to deliver 
authoritative oral instructions, which might be handed 
down by tradition, and collected into an unwritten code. 
But, in the first place, the supposition is not to be 
endured that the apostles orally communicated instruc- 
tions which were separate from, or independent of, the 
Scriptures. Their oral teachings, when reduced to 
‘writing, were precisely the Scriptures, and when not 


Tur Principt& or Sourcr or THErotoey. 173 


reduced to writing were expository of the Scriptures. 
That they delivered an oral code different from the 
Scriptures is preposterous. In the second place, if they 
had, it is perfectly certain that we could not know it in 
its integrity; and not to know it in its integrity would 
be equivalent to not knowing it at all, if it would not be 
vastly worse. 

Sixthly. The Scriptures cannot sanction anything 
that is contradictory to them. But many of the tradi- 
tions of Rome are contradictory to them. Some of these 
are signalized, as they occur to memory, without regard 
to logical order. Scripture teaches that none but Christ 
could offer himself in sacrifice; tradition, that he may 
be offered in sacrifice by human priests. Scripture 
teaches that Christ needs not daily to be offered in 
sacrifice; tradition, that he needs to be daily offered in 
sacrifice. Scripture says to the believing people touch- 
ing the wine in the supper, All of you drink of it; 
tradition, None of you drink of it. Scripture says, Mar- 
riage is honorable in all; tradition, Marriage is not 
honorable in all. Scripture teaches that there is but one 
Lord of the church; tradition, that there are two Lords, 
Christ and the pope. Scripture teaches that there is 
but one head of the church; tradition, that there are 
two, Christ and the pope. Scripture teaches that no 
human officer of the church should be a lord over God’s 
heritage; tradition, that the pope is of right lord over 
God’s heritage; and so, on and on. Is it necessary to 
press the argument that Scripture cannot sanction or 
authorize these flat contradictions to itself ? 

(5) The oral teachings of Christ and the apostles, 


od ew a 
.** ~* 


ry 5 ™ 
174 Discusstons or THroLoaicat QuesTIONs. 


when clearly ascertained, are of equal authority with 
the Scriptures. Certainly. We have nothing to object 
to that proposition. Jf the oral teachings of Christ and 
the apostles were clearly ascertained to us, of course, 
they would be clothed with the highest authority. But 
we deny that, without miraculous interposition, and that 
absolutely indisputable, the oral instructions of Christ 
and the apostles which are not embodied in the Serip- 
tures can be clearly ascertained. Enough has already 
been said to render it needless to dwell upon this point 
here. The miraculous evidence which Rome pretends 
to furnish will be noticed in another part of the discus- 
sion. 

(6) The authority of the early fathers is appealed to 
in support of tradition. 

It must be kept in view what the question is which 
is under discussion. It is in regard to the claim of 
Romanists that tradition is a part of the rule of faith 
and duty, codrdinate with the Scriptures. An appeal 
to the early fathers as merely citing tradition in their 
controversies is not sufficient. It must be shown that 
they referred to its authority as an integral element of 
the rule of faith and duty. Otherwise the appeal to 
them, so far as this question is concerned, is utterly 
irrelevant and vain. Now, as a matter of fact, can this 
be done? Can the early fathers be quoted as placing 
tradition upon an equal footing with the Scriptures ? 
This cannot be done. Whatever, therefore, is the value 
of their authority, it cannot be pleaded in favor of the 
Romanist doctrine touching tradition. Had this not 
been the state of the case, had the vaunting appeal of 


Tur Prrncrete or Source or Torotoey. 175 


Romanists to patristic support in favor of their doctrine 
been colored by some tincture of truth, it would have 
been necessary to consider the question, How much value 
is to be attached to that sort of evidence to emphasize the 
obvious and necessary distinction between the authority 
and the testimony of the fathers so happily indicated by 
Waterland, and to estimate the degree of importance 
to be assigned to their testimony? All this is rendered 
superfluous by the fact that there is no patristic testi- 
mony which can be adduced in favor of the Romanist’s 
position with reference to tradition, as codrdinate with 
the Scriptures in constituting the rule of faith and prac- 
tice. 

This is not rashly spoken. It is the deliberate con- 
clusion of writers who have thoroughly examined the 
evidence. After referring to “the fact of essential im- 
portance,” upon the question of the sufficiency of Scrip- 
ture, “that a process of declension or deterioration, both 
in respect of soundness of doctrine and purity of char- 
acter, commencing even in the apostles’ days, continued 
gradually to advance,” and that “this fact is fatal to the 
authority, properly so-called, of the fathers,” Principal 
William Cunningham goes on to say, “There is, however, 
a remarkable exception to this constant tendency to 
deterioration observable during the second and third 
centuries, to which, before proceeding further, I think 
it right to direct attention: I mean the constant main- 
tenance, during the first three centuries, of the supre- 
macy and sufficiency of the sacred Scriptures, and the 
right and duty of all men to read and study them. There 
is no trace of evidence in the first three centuries that 


176 Duiscusstons or THEoLtoercaL QuEsTIONS. 


these scriptural principles were denied or doubted, and 
there is satisfactory evidence that they were steadily 
and purely maintained. The fathers of that period were 
all in the habit of referring to the sacred Seriptures as 
the only real standard of faith and practice. They 
assert, both directly and by implication, their exclusive 
authority, and their perfect sufficiency to guide men to 
the knowledge of God’s revealed will. They have all 
more or less explicitly asserted this, and they have 
asserted nothing inconsistent with it.” Without enter- 
ing into “the detailed evidence of this position,” he 
refers, with high commendation, to Goode’s Divine Rule 
of Faith and Practice, in which “it is adduced at length, 
cleared from every cavil and established beyond all fair 
controversy.” * 

It is granted that the early fathers used tradition as 
an argument. Chillingworth admits this, but shows that 
the tradition appealed to was nothing but the consensus 
of the apostolic churches, which was employed against 
heretics who declined the authority of the Seriptures as 
ultimate; and that the fathers urged that consent, “not 
as a demonstration, but only as a very probable argu- 


ment, far greater than any their adversaries could oppose 


against it.” I cannot forbear appending the words of 
that great man to his Romish opponent in which he 
treats his appeal to the early fathers in support of 
tradition with merited scorn, “If you will come one thou- 
sand five hundred years after the apostles, a fair time 
for the purest church to gather much dross and corrup- 
tion, and for the mystery of iniquity to bring its work 


1 Hist. Theology, Vol. I., pp. 184, 185. 


- “ 


| “sg 


Tur PrinciPLe or Source oF TuHEotocy. 177 


to some perfection, which in the apostles’ times began 
to work; if (I say) you will come thus long after, and 
urge us with the single tradition of one of these churches, 
being now catholic to itself alone, and heretical to all 
the rest; nay, not only with her ancient and original 
traditions, but also with her post-nate introduced defini- 
tions, and these, as we pretend, repugnant to Scripture 
and ancient tradition, and all this to decline an indif- 
ferent trial by Scripture, under pretence (wherein also 
you agree with the calumny of the old heretics) that all 
necessary truth cannot be found in them without re- 
course to tradition; if, I say, notwithstanding all these 
differences, you will still be urging us with this argu- 
ment as the very same, and of the same force with that 
wherewith the forementioned fathers urged the old 
heretics; certainly this must needs proceed from a con- 
fidence you have, not only that we have no school divin- 
ity, nor metaphysics, but no logic, or common sense; 
that we are but pictures of men, and have the definition 
of rational creatures given us in vain.” 1 

It is insisted upon that the pith of the matter lies 
here: the Romanist’s position is that tradition is a part 
of the rule of faith and duty, of equal authority with 
Scripture. In support of this position, he appeals to 
the respect with which the early fathers treated tradi- 
tion. But whatever use they made of it, they never 
treated it as of equal authority with Scripture. The 
Romanist’s appeal to them, therefore, is a vain pretence. 
The truth is that the early fathers never countenanced 
the sophistical evasions of the authority of the Scrip- 


* Works, Vol. II., p. 422. 
12 


178 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


tures of which Rome is guilty. ‘All the fathers,” says 
Calvin, in the eloquent address to Francis I., with which 
he prefaces his Institutes, “all the fathers with one heart 
execrated, and with one mouth protested against, con- 
taminating the Word of God with the subtleties of 
sophists, and involving it in the brawls of dialecti- 
cians.” * 

(7) Tradition is sustained by the analogy of unwrit- 
ten law recognized by the State. 

The question will not just at this point be raised, 
whether there is any real validity in the Romanist’s dis- 
tinction between the written and the unwritten law — 
Libri Scripti and sine scripto traditiones — that is, 
whether there are in fact unwritten traditions. But 
holding that question in abeyance for a while, I remark : 

First. The analogy which is pleaded breaks down in 
an obvious respect. The State frames written law by 
its own authority. The church has no authority to con- 
struct its own written law. In this particular, the 
analogy fails. 

Secondly. The written law of the church was framed 
by God alone. Here is another difference. And the 
written law thus grounded solely and immediately in 
God’s authority is, as has been already shown, perfect. 
Tt needs neither to be supplemented nor interpreted by 
unwritten law. 

To this it is objected that the written law of the 
Scriptures is marked by brevity and compactness, that 
these characteristics render it obscure, narrow and liable 
to inconsistency; and enforce the necessity of divine 


1Inst., Vol. I., p. 16. 


Tue PRINCIPLE oR Source oF THEoLoey. 179 


expositions of a fuller and more specific nature. But 
it deserves to be considered that the more numerous and 
detailed are the specifications of statutory law, the 
greater is the danger of obscurity and inconsistency, 
unless the enumeration of specific applications is abso- 
lutely exhaustive, and holds all the particulars in har- 
mony with each other. This perfection has never been, 
perhaps cannot be, realized in any human code. Codi- 
fiers of statutory enactments are, therefore, laboring to 
sum up the law in short, comprehensive, definitive prop- 
ositions, which implicitly include all specific cases. 
There is less danger, on this plan, of ambiguity. ‘These 
discussions,” observes Bouvier, “have called attention 
to a subject formerly little considered, but which is of 
fundamental importance to the successful preparation of 
a code — the matter of statutory expression. There is 
no species of composition which demands more care and 
precision than that of drafting a statute. The writer 
needs not only to make his language intelligible, he must 
make it incapable of misconstruction. When it has 
passed to a law, it is no longer his intent that is to be 
considered, but the intent of the words which he has 
used; and that intent is to be ascertained under the 
strong pressure of an attempt of the advocate to win 
whatever possible construction may be most favorable 


tohis cause. The true safeguard is found not in the old 


method of accumulating synonyms and by an enumera- 
tion of particulars, but rather — as is shown by those 
American codes of which the Revised Statutes of New 
York and the revision of Massachusetts are admirable 
specimens — by concise and complete statement of the 


180 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIONS. 


full principle in the fewest possible words, and the 
elimination of description and paraphrase by the sepa- 
rate statement of necessary definitions.” ? 

These observations are judicious and weighty, in 
regard to human written law. One fails to see that the 
views expressed with reference to the codification of 
human statutes do not also hold of the divine code. The 
fundamental principles, whether of redemption or 
morals are plainly and definitely enunciated in the 
written law of God, and a sufficient number of their 
applications to concrete instances are given to throw 
light upon all cases. More than this was not necessary 
in a directory of faith and duty. It would, of course, 
have been possible to omniscience to have furnished not 
only the general principles, but also an absolutely ex- 
haustive enumeration of all the conceivable cases to 
which they might be applied. This infinite wisdom did 
not see fit to do; and if it had seen otherwise the Bible, 
instead of being what it is, a complete but at the same 
time a convenient, compact, portable manual of religious 
faith and duty, would have been too voluminous and 
bulky for even the Vatican library to contain. The con- 
ception is, from the point of view of human need, im- 
practicable and absurd. Now what God did not deem 
it best to do, why should the Church of Rome seek to 
accomplish? Her enormous system of moral theology 
and casuistry, for example, instead of throwing light 
upon the Scriptures, beclouds them, and plunges the 
sincere inquirer into their meaning into deeper darkness 
than ever. It blunts the incisive edge of the conscience 


1Law Dictionary, Art. Code. 


Tur Prixcipte or Source oF Tueotoey. 181 


when, under the guidance of a few simple, regulative 
principles, and loads it down beneath a colossal pile of 
special obligations, which torture rather than help it. 
A sincere desire to do what is right, accompanied with 
a sense of dependence upon the Holy Ghost as inter- 
preting the Scriptures, is worth more than it all. 

Furthermore, unwritten law is an uncodified number 
of legal principles of a fundamental character. It would 
be an interesting question from what source these prin- 
ciples are derived, and there can be little doubt that most 
of them, at least, were drawn from the Mosaic code, 
although not preserved in the formal systematized shape 
in which they are expressed in that code. That question 
eannot, however, be here discussed. The fundamental 
principles of the common law, in contradistinction to 
statute law, the least careful analysis will discover to be 
imbedded in the natural constitution of man. Like the 
fundamental laws of intellectual belief, they are evolved 
from latency and elicited into formal expression by 
actual cases occurring in experience. They thus become 
the bases of specific decisions by courts, in which deter- 
minate applications to cases are given; and these 
reported decisions, embraced in the records of different 
courts, constitute a body of precedents to which reference 
is constantly made in the processes of law. 

But there is no such analogy as is pleaded by Roman- 
ists for the existence of unwritten, traditional law in 
the ecclesiastical sphere. The reasons are obvious. In 
the first place, the fundamental principles implicitly 
given in man’s natural constitution, so far as they are 
needed for purposes of law in the ecclesiastical and 


™ 


182 Duscusstons or TuroLocicaL QuEsTIONS. 


spiritual sphere, are actually taken up and explicitly 
incorporated into God’s written law — the holy Serip- 
tures. The Bible does not, like human written law, 
merely presuppose these unwritten natural principles; 
it formally embodies them, gives them express enuncia- 
tion in its written provisions. In the second place, the 
same is done by the Scriptures as the divine written law 
in regard to the oral instructions of Christ and the 
apostles. It seems to be assumed that tradition sustains 
to these early oral decisions the same relation that 
records and reports sustain to the oral decisions of hu- 
man courts. This is a vital mistake. The instructions 
which flowed from the mouth of Christ and the apostles, 
so far as God saw them requisite for the instruction and 
government of the church, were ab initio taken up into 
and explicitly enunciated by the sacred Scriptures as 
his written law. 

It is the remark of an able legal writer that there is a 
constant tendency on the part of codifiers of statutory 
enactments to embrace in them the unformulated prin- 
ciples of the common law, and so to crystallize those 
principles in the sharply defined forms of statutory law. 
But this is a process which cannot be completed. On 
the other hand, all the fundamental principles which 
were necessary were from the beginning by the infinite 
wisdom of God introduced into the Scriptures as his 
written law, and there forever stamped with the definite- 
ness of statutory enactment. 

There is no ground for the Romanist’s craftily urged 
analogy between the state and the church, between the 
laws of man and the law of God. The foundation for 


Tur PRINCIPLE oR SourCE oF THEOLOGY. 183 


his traditional law by which he makes void the com- 
mandments of God is swept away. 

Thirdly. It was remarked, at the outset of this 
special argument as to analogy, that the question whether 
there are in fact any unwritten traditions of the Church 
of Rome would be held in abeyance. That question 
now comes up for consideration. 

In the first place, it is more than doubtful whether 
the phraseology is accurate which draws a sharp distinc- 
tion between the written and the unwritten law of the 
state — the lex scripta and the lex non scripta. Is the 
position tenable, if accuracy is observed, that the com- 
mon law is unwritten, and that im this respect it is 
distinguished from the constitution of a state and its 
statutes? In a case of criminal procedure under the 
provisions of the common law, it is said that the judge 
decides what is the law and the jury what are the facts 
in the case. Is it meant that the judge draws the law 
from his own mind? that he enounces the fundamental 
principle or principles bearing upon the case as they 
exist in his own nature, or as he remembers to have 
heard them orally delivered by some other judge or 
court? Does he not refer to previous decisions which 
are on record? But if on record, how? As unwritten ? 
Impossible. The distinctive characteristic of the com- 
mon law, therefore, cannot be that it is unwritten law. 
Begging pardon for the apparent presumption of a 
layman, one must suggest that the discrimination of the 
common law from constitutional and statutory law must 
lie in something else. They are both written, but the 
one is not formulated and digested, and so is distin- 


184 Discussions or TuroLocicaL QuEsTIoNs. 


guishable from constitutions and statutes, and further, 
when statutes are codified, distinguishable from them 
as being uncodified. This is not captiously said, but is 
believed to rest upon facts, and is here urged because 
of its bearing upon the position of the Romanist. What 
is that position ¢ 

In the second place, the Romanist may say that what 
he means by unwritten law is law not written in the 
Seriptures. This plea will not avail him. It is, of 
course, not only conceded by the Protestant, but strenu- 
ously contended by him, that the traditional law of 
Rome is not in the Scriptures. But the question is 
whether it is an unwritten or a written law. To say 
that it is not written in the Scriptures no more proves 
that it is unwritten than to say that because the common 
law of the land is not written in state constitutions and 
statutes, therefore it is in no sense written. One would 
suppose from the language of Romanists that the tradi- 
tional law has been simply communicated by word of 
mouth from generation to generation. Now this is 
altogether out of the question, not only because of the 
natural impossibility in the supposition, but because it 
is point blank opposed to facts. Can it be supposed that 
a tradition professing to have emanated from Christ or 
the apostles could have passed down through two gene 
rations, without ever being recorded in writing? But 
what are the facts? Are the reputed traditions of Rome 
unrecorded in writing? Are they not “for the most part 
now to be found written in the works of the fathers, 
decisions of councils, ecclesiastical constitutions” and 
bulls “and rescripts of the popes’? We have, then, a 


Tur PrrncreLe or Sourcr or Tunonocy. 185 


body of traditional law, not codified or digested into a 
aystem it may be, but all the same a body of written law. 
The documents are known in which it is recorded. The 
English constitution may not exist in any one instru- 
ment, but it is written in Magna Charta and other great 
documents. 

The point that is now emphasized is, that the Church 
of Rome possesses a written traditional law which it not 
only codrdinates with the written Word of God, but 
lifts to a position of superiority to it in that it makes it 
a supplement to and an interpreter of that Word. Look 
at it! A body of written law, composed by uninspired 
men, exalted to an authority paramount to that of the 
Scriptures, the product, according to Rome’s own con- 
fession, of divine inspiration ! 

(8) It is contended that tradition is supported by 
historical testimony and catholic consent. 

It is usual to treat historical testimony and catholic 
consent as the alleged criteria of tradition. But one 
fails to see any substantial difference between criteria 
and proofs of tradition. A tradition which can stand 
the tests of historical testimony and catholic consent is, 
it is claimed, proved by them. No importance, there- 
fore, is here attached to a distinction which is more 
imaginary than real. The contention of the Romanist 
is, that the traditions now maintained by his church 
may be traced back through the centuries to the time 
of the apostles, and that from that time there has been 
the catholic consent of the church in their adoption and 
transmission. Whether that contention can be made 
good, is the question immediately before us. 


186 Discussions or THEoLogicaL Questions. 


First. Historical testimony does not sustain this 
claim of Romanists. ‘For more than three hundred 
years after the apostles,” remarks Dr. A. A. Hodge, 
“they have very little, and that contradictory, evidence 
for any one of their traditions. They are thus forced to 
the absurd assumption that what was taught in the 
fourth century was therefore taught in the third, and 
therefore in the first.” 1 This is an extraordinary asser- 
tion, and, if it be not rebutted, annihilates the claim of 
the Romanist. He is somewhat in the condition of the 
evolutionist who has proceeded at an even pace until 
suddenly his undistrubed progress is halted on the brink 
of a great chasm between the inorganic and the organic 
— the dead and the living. What shall he do? The 
missing links of facts will not come at his call. The gulf 
is too wide for any suspension bridge to span it. He 
poises himself on his haunches, and by a miraculous 
effort he leaps to the other side, and presto! he is at 
once transferred from the realm of death to a paradise 
teeming with the evidences of life. So the Romanist 
finds the process of traditionary dimaration interrupted 
by a chasm between the fourth century and the first. 
What shall he do? If, like the man of Macedonia, he 
calls across the gulf to the apostles to come over and help 
him, they will not respond to his shouts. He must then 
get over to them. But how? His pontoon bridge of 
tradition has shared the fate of the first that Xerxes 
threw across the Hellespont. Like the evolutionist, he 
adopts the expedient of saltation. He jumps. And, lo! 
he is listening to the oral instructions of the apostles. 


*Outl. Theol., p. 83. 


Tue Princrete or Source oF THeotoey. 187 


“Admitting,” says Dr. Charles Hodge, “that the 
Church of Rome is the whole church, and admitting that 
church to be unanimous in holding certain doctrines, 
that is no proof that that church has always held them. 
The rule! requires that a doctrine must be held not 
only ab omnibus, but semper. It is, however, a historical 
fact that all the peculiar doctrines of Romanism were 
not received in the early church as matters of faith. 
Such doctrines as the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome; 
the perpetuity of the apostleship; the grace of orders; 
transubstantiation; the propitiatory sacrifice of the 
mass; the power of the priests to forgive sins; the 
seven sacraments; purgatory; the immaculate concep- 
tion of the Virgin Mary, etc., ete., can all be historically 
traced in their origin, gradual development, and final 
adoption.” ? 

The writers already cited have made only general 
statements, which they knew could be verified by facts, 
and had often been so verified. It is well, however, that 
the facts, to a sufficient extent at least, should be ad- 
duced, and that the general charge should be supported 
by specifications in detail. For this purpose extracts 
will be subjoined from the works of Chillingworth, 
whose ability, learning and minute investigation of the 
matter cannot well be questioned. 

Speaking to the question of the infallibility of the 
Church of Rome he remarks, “Universal tradition (you 
say, and so do I, too) is of itself credible; and that hath 
in all ages taught the church’s infallibility with full 
consent. If it have, I am ready to believe it; but that 


+ Of Vincentius Lirinensis. ? Syst. Theol., Vol. I., p. 123. 


188 Discusstons or THroLocicat Questions. 


it hath, I hope you would not have me take upon your 
word; for that were to build myself upon the church, 
and the church upon you. Let, then, the tradition 
appear; for a secret tradition is somewhat like a silent 
thunder. You will perhaps produce, for the confirma- 
tion of it, some sayings of some fathers, who in every 
age taught this doctrine (as Gualterius in his Chronol- 
ogy undertakes to do; but with so ill success that I heard 
an able man of your religion profess that in the first 
three centuries there was not one authority pertinent) : 
but how will you warrant that none of them teach the 
contrary? Again, how shall I be assured that the places 
have indeed this sense in them, seeing that there is not 
one father for five hundred: years after Christ that does 
say, in plain terms, the Church of Rome is infallible ? 
What, shall we believe your church, that this is their 
meaning? But this will be again to go into the cirele, 
which made us giddy before: to prove this church infal- 
lible, because tradition says so; tradition to say so, be- 
cause the fathers say so; the fathers to say so, because 
the church says so, which is infallible.” ? 

“Stephen, bishop of Rome, held it as a matter of faith 
and apostolic tradition that heretics gave true baptism ; 
others there were, and they as good Catholics as he, that 
held that this was neither matter of faith, nor matter of 
truth. Justin Martyr and-Irenzus held the doctrine of 
the millenaries as a matter of faith; and though Justin 
Martyr deny it, yet you, I hope, will affirm that some 
good Christians held the contrary. St. Augustine, I am 
sure, held the communicating of infants as much apos- 


» Works, Vol. I., pp. 289, 290. 


Tur PrIncIPpLE or Source oF TuHEotocy. 189 


tolie tradition as the baptizing of them; whether the 
bishop of the Church of Rome of his time held so too, or 
held otherwise, I desire you to determine. But sure I 
am, the Church of Rome at this present holds the con- 
trary. The same St. Augustine held it no matter of 
faith that the bishops of Rome were judges of appeals 
from all parts of the church catholic; no, not in major 
causes and major persons: whether the bishop or Church 
of Rome did then hold the contrary, do you resolve; but 
now I am resolved that they do so.” ? 

“Tf, therefore, you intend to prove want of a per- 
petual succession of professors a certain note of heresy, 
you must not content yourself to show that having it is 
one sign of truth; but you must show it to be the only 
sign of it, and inseparable from it. But this, if you be 
well advised, you will never undertake; first, because it 
is an impossible attempt; and then because if you do it, 
you will mar all: for by proving this an inseparable 
sign of catholic doctrine, you will prove your own, which 
apparently wants it in many points, not to be catholic. 
For whereas you say, This succession requires two 
things, agreement with the apostles’ doctrine, and an 
uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that chal- 
lenge it; it will be proved against you, that you fail in 
both points; and that some things wherein you agree 
with the apostles have not been held always; as your 
condemning the doctrine of the Chiliasts, and holding 
the eucharist not necessary for infants ; and that in many 
other things you agree not with them, nor with the 
church for many ages [centuries] after; for example, in 


‘ [bid., Vol. I, p- 100. 


190 Duscusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


mutilation of the communion, in having your service in 
such a language as the assistants generally understand 
not, your offering to saints, your picturing of God, your 
worshipping of pictures.” * 

In an answer to some passages in Rushworth’s Dia- 
logues about traditions, in which a Romanist is repre- 
sented as instructing his nephew as to the grounds upon 
which the traditional beliefs of Rome should be received, 
Chillingworth, personating the catechumen, says that he 
would have reminded the interrogator (among others) 
of the following things: 

That “had I lived before the Lateran Council, which 
condemned Berengarius, possibly I might have known, 
that the belief of the real presence of Christ in the 
sacrament was part of the public doctrine of my country ; 
but whether the real absence of the bread and wine after 
consecration, and their transubstantiation into Christ’s 
body, were likewise catholic doctrines at that time, that I 
could not have known, seeing that all men were at liberty 
to hold it was so, or it was not so. 

“That living now, I know it is catholic doctrine that 
the souls of the blessed enjoy the vision of God; but if I 
had lived in the reign of Pope John XXIL., I should not 
have known that then it was so, considering that many 
good Catholics before that time had believed, and that 
even the pope himself did believe, the contrary; and he 
is warranted by Bellarmine for so doing, because the 
church had not then defined it. 

“That either Catholics of the present time do so differ 
in their belief, that what some hold lawful and pious, 


1Tbid., Vol. II., p. 424. 


Tue PrincieLe or Source oF TuHEotoaey. 191 


others condemn as unlawful and impious; or else, that 
all now consent, and consequently make it Catholic 
doctrine, that it is not unlawful to make the usual pic- 
tures of the Trinity, and to set them in churches to be 
adored. But had I lived in St. Augustine’s time, I 
should then have been taught another lesson, to-wit, that 
this doctrine and practice was impious, and the contrary 
doctrine catholic. 

“That now I was taught that the doctrine of indul- 
gences was an apostolic tradition; but had I lived six 
hundred years since, and found that in all antiquity 
there was no use of them, I should either have thought 
the primitive church no faithful steward in defrauding 
men’s souls of this treasure intended by God to them, 
and so necessary for them, or rather that the doctrine 
of indulgences, now practiced in the Church of Rome, 
was not then catholic. 

“That the general practice of Roman Catholics now 
taught me that it was a pious thing to offer incense and 
tapers to the saints and to their pictures; but had I 
lived in the primitive church, I should, with the church, 
have condemned it in the Collyridians as heretical.” 

It might be tedious and unnecessary to multiply these 
quotations. The learned writer goes on to show that the 
same thing is true in regard to the doctrine of purgatory, 
of the invocation of saints, of auricular confession, of 
the denial of the sacramental cup to the laity, of the 
conduct of public service in a tongue unknown to the 
people, and he is at special pains to prove it true with 
reference to the doctrine of the immaculate conception 
of the Virgin Mary, by numerous and convincing argu- 


192 Duscusstons or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


ments of some of the most celebrated writers of the 
Church of Rome. Each of these doctrines and practices 
is, to use the words of Vincent of Lerins, res inducta non 
tradita, inventa non accepta. The following words, 
which have a prophetic sound to us of the present day, 
were not prophetic; they simply expressed an inference 
from the past to the future course of Rome in distin- 
guishing itself as a factory of what she labels traditions : 
“There are divers doctrines in the Roman Church which 
have not yet arrived to the honor to be donate: civitate, 
to be received into the number of articles of faith, which 
yet press very hard for it, and through the importunity 
and multitude of their attorneys that plead for them, in 
process of time may very probably be admitted. Of this 
rank are the blessed Virgin’s immaculate conception, the 
pope’s infallibility in determining controversies, his 
superiority to councils, his indirect power over princes 
in temporalities, ete. Now as these are not yet matters 
of faith and apostolic traditions, yet in after ages, im 
the days of our great-grandchildren, may very probably 
become so; why should we not fear and suspect that 
many things now pass currently, as points of faith, 
which ecclesia ab apostolis, apostol a Christo, Christus 
a Deo, recepit, which perhaps in the days of our great- 
grandfathers had no such reputation ?” 

I conclude these citations from Chillingworth with 
this definite and comprehensive utterance, “The mporov 
¢ebd0¢, the fountain of error in this matter is this, that 
the whole religion of the Roman Church, and every 
point of it, is conceived or pretended to have issued 
originally out of the fountain of apostolic tradition, 


Tur PRINCIPLE or SourcE oF THEonoey. 193 


either in themselves or in the principles from which they 
are evidently deducible; whereas, it is evident that 
many of their doctrines may be originally derived from 
the decrees of councils, many from papal definitions, 
many from the authority of some great man; to which 
purpose it is very remarkable what Gregory Nazianzen 
says of Athanasius, ‘What pleased him was a law to 
men; what did not please him was a thing prohibited 
by law: his decrees were to them like Moses’ tables, and 
he had a greater veneration paid him than seems to be 
due from men to saints.’ ” * 

The conclusion from this special line of argument is, 
that the Romanist’s appeal, in behalf of tradition, to his- 
torical testimony and catholic consent is futile. His 
traditions violate the rule of one of his own theologians 
that they should be tradite non inducte, accepte non 
mente. In point of fact, they are introduced, not 
handed down; invented, not accepted. 

Secondly. The Romanist, in arguing for tradition 
from common consent is chargeable with the logical vice 
of reasoning in a circle. 

If he be asked in regard to tradition, In what do you 
ground the faith of the church? he answers, In common 
consent. If asked, In what do you ground common con- 
sent? he replies, In the faith of the church. It is not 
necessary to substantiate the first of these assertions. 
The whole preceding contention under this head pre- 
supposes the fact that the Romanist in part grounds the 
ehurch’s faith in tradition in common consent. That 
the second assertion is true let the following statement of 


* Works, Vol. III., p. 435, ff. 
13 


id 


194 Discusstons or THrotocicat Questions. 


Petrus 4 Soto, quoted by Dr. Charles Hodge tela 
Chemnitz,! testify, “Quecunque credit, tenet, et servat 
Romana ecclesia, et in Scripturis non habentur, illa ab 
apostolis esse tradita.” This, then, is the circle with 
reference to tradition: The faith of the church is 
grounded in common consent; common consent is 
grounded in the faith of the church. 

2. The arguments against the Romanist doctrine of 
tradition have for the most part been presented in an- 
swering those urged in its favor; but there are some 
other opposing considerations which it is proper to 
add. 

(1) There are traditions, which were acknowledged 
by some of the fathers to have been observed in their 
day, that have either been lost, or rejected by the Church 
of Rome, notwithstanding that she claims to be the safe 
depository, and the infallible keeper, of all the early 
tradition of the church. 

Chillingworth, commenting on Tertullian’s De Corona 
Militis, ¢. iii., says, “Where having recounted sundry 
unwritten traditions then observed by Christians, many 
whereof, by the way (notwithstanding the Council of 
Trent’s profession to ‘receive them and the written word 
with like affection of piety’) are now rejected and 
neglected by the Church of Rome; for example, im- 
mersion in baptism, tasting a mixture of milk and honey 
presently after, abstaining from baths for a week after, 
accounting it an impiety to pray kneeling on the Lord’s 
day, or between Easter and Pentecost; I say, having 


1Baamen Concilii Tridentini, p. 85, edit. Frankfort, 1574. 


Tur Princretr or Sourcr or Turotoaey. 195 


reckoned up these and other traditions in Chap. IIL, 
he adds another in the fourth, of the veiling of 
women.” 4 

Now, how will the Romanist dispose of these facts ? 
If he denies the facts, he discredits the testimony of 
Tertullian which he is accustomed to respect. If he say 
that these traditions have been lost, he sacrifices the 
claim of his church to be the watchful, faithful, infal- 
lible custodian of tradition. And further it is craved of 
him to show how these traditions have been lost, and 
Tertullian’s account of them has been preserved. Has 
the Church of Rome lost Tertullian’s works? If he say 
that they have not been lost, but deliberately rejected by 
his church, he gives up her claim to be the receiver and 
keeper of traditions, and makes her their judge and 
determiner. He assigns to her the extraordinary prerog- 
ative of a manufacturer of history. And, upon this 
supposition, he is desired to show how 'the immutable 
church complies with the immutable dectrine of Trent, 
that unwritten traditions are to be received with an 
affection of piety and a veneration equal to that which 
is accorded to the Scriptures. 

(2) There were some traditions the existence of which 
in their time was acknowledged by fathers (not, how- 
ever, in proximity to the apostles), which were either 
admitted by those fathers themselves tu have originated 
in private sources, or were denounced by them as invalid 
and deserving of rejection. 

“Since,” says Tertullian, “TI find no law for this [the 
veiling of women], it follows that tradition must have 


* Works, Vol. I., p. 412. 


196 Driscusstons or THEoLoeicaL QuEsTIONS. 


given this observation to custom, which shall gain in 
time apostolical authority by the interpretation of the 
reason of it. By these examples, therefore, it is declared 
that the observing of unwritten tradition, being con- 
firmed by custom, may be defended; the perseverance 
of the observation being a good testimony of the good- 
ness of the tradition. Now custom, even in civil affairs, 
where a law is wanting, passeth for a law. Neither is it 
material whether it be grounded in Scripture or reason, 
seeing reason is commendation enough for a law. More- 
over, if law be grounded on reason, all that must be law 
which is so grounded—a quocunque productum — 
whosoever is the producer of it. Do ye think it is not 
lawful, omni fideli, for every faithful man to conceive 
and constitute, provided he constitute only what is not 
repugnant to God’s will, what is conducible for disci- 
pline, and available to salvation? seeing the Lord says, 
‘Why even of yourselves judge not what is right? 

This reason now demands saving the respect 
of the tradition — a quocunque traditore censetur, nec 
authorem respiciens sed authoritatem ; from whatever 
tradition [traditor] it comes, neither regarding the 
author, but the authority.” ? 

We see that there were fathers who not only cornified 
that there were traditional usages prevailing in their 
day, which sprung from individual, private sources, but 
justified them on the score of prescriptive authority. 
What guarantee have we that the current traditions of 
Rome did not originate in the same way? What proof 
is there that they descended in unbroken flow from the 


1 De Corona Militis, e. III., cited by Chillingworth. 


Tue Prrincre_te or Source oF THEOLoGy. 197 


apostles, especially as we have seen that there is a gap 
between the fourth and the first century which authentic 
history fails to span with any series of apostolic tradi- 
tions ? 

There were also traditional customs the existence of 
which was acknowledged by some of the fathers, but 
which they disapproved as invalid and as taking prece- 
dence of the precepts of Scripture. Of this allegation 
Augustine is an instance in proof. “This,” says he, “I do 
infinitely grieve at, that many most wholesome precepts 
of the divine Scripture are little regarded; and in the 
meantime all is so full of so many presumptions, that 
he is more grievously found fault with who during his 
octaves toucheth the earth with his naked foot, than he 
that shall bury his soul in drunkenness.” “They were,” 
he goes on to say, “neither contained in Scripture, de- 
creed by councils, nor corroborated by the custom of the 
universal church: and though not against faith yet 
unprofitable burdens of Christian liberty, which made 
the condition of the Jews more tolerable than that of 
Christians.” “And, therefore,” remarks Chillingworth,! 
from whom again I quote, “he professeth of them, Ap- 
probare non possum, I cannot approve them; and, ubi 
facultas tribuitur, resecanda existimo; I think they are 
to be cut off wheresoever we have power. Yet so deeply 
were they rooted, and spread so far, through the indis- 
creet devotion of the people, always more prone to super- 
stition than true piety, and through the connivance of 
the governors who should have strangled them at their 
birth, that himself, though he grieved at them and could 


* Works, Vol. I., pp. 417, 418. 


198 Discussions or THEoLoGicaL Questions. 


not allow them, yet for fear of offence he durst not speak 
against them.” 

The Romanist may say in reply, that, according to 
the distinction drawn by Bellarmin! between divine 
traditions, received by the apostles from Christ, apos- 
tolical, derived from the apostles, and ecclesiastical, 
namely customs begun by the prelates and the people, 
which gradually through the consent ef the people ob- 
tained the force of law, the usages complained of must 
be assigned to the last-named class —a class of tradi- 
tional usages which have not the same high authority as 
the doctrinal traditions which came down from Christ 
or the apostles. I rejoin: in the first place, the distine- 
tion appealed to is a merely formal and artificial one, 
which, to serve her purposes, has been turned out of the 
manufactory of Rome; in the second place, the Church 
of Rome herself attaches the same importance to her 
ecclesiastical traditions as to her doctrinal; and in the 
third place, the two sorts of tradition are, in point of 
fact, so intertwined with each other that to separate them 
would be to tear the fabric of Rome to pieces. 

(3) The Romanist position in regard to tradition 
involves a vicious doctrine as to the authority of common 
consent. 

The Romanist thus argues: Whatsoever is delivered 
to us by the common consent of the whole church ought 
to be received as an article of faith; but such and such 
doctrines are delivered to us by the common consent of 
the whole Roman Catholic Church; therefore, they are 
to be received as articles of faith. Here we have a uni- 


1 De Verbo Dei, IV., 1. 


Tue Privciete or Source oF THEeotocy. 199 


versal affirmative in the major premise and a particular 
affirmative in the minor. It is quietly assumed that the 
Roman Catholic Church is the whole church. In the 
first place, the so-called Catholic Church existed long 
before the Roman Church pretended to be the Catholic 
Church. In the second place, large sections of the 
universal church now are not connected with the Roman 
Church, but protest against its usurpation of the title 
Catholic Church. In the third place, if we follow the 
Scriptures we will dispute the claim of the Roman 
Church to be a part of the church catholic, and will 
regard it as as anti-Christian apostasy from the prin- 
ciples of the true universal church. But even if the 
Roman Catholic Church could make good her prepos- 
terous claim to be the same as the church catholic of the 
early centuries, we have seen that her traditions cannot 
historically be proved to have been sustained by the 
common consent of that church. She is confronted by 
this dilemma: if she cannot make good that claim, her 
traditions confessedly have not the support of common 
consent; if she could make it good, they would not have 
the support of her own common consent. 

While on this subject we may as well go farther, and 
advert to the position of some leading Protestants in 
relation to common consent. Utterly repudiating the 
position of Rome, they argue thus: Whatever doctrines 
are delivered to us by the common consent of the true 
church are to be received as articles of faith. In the 
first place, if by the true church is meant the invisible 
church — the body of the elect — it is no doubt correct 
to say that the common consent of the church, so con- 


200 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


sidered, was always to the truth. But how could that 
common consent be ascertained? How could it be sig- 
nified tous? Has the invisible church a mouth to speak, 
or a pen to write? It is idle to talk of the common 
consent of the invisible church. We had as well speak 
of the common consent of angels or of the glorified saints 
as determining points of doctrine for us. But, in the 
second place, if the visible church is meant, as meant 
it must be, the question arises, Which is the true church ? 
And if we could determine which, among rival claim- 
ants, is the true church, what guarantee have we that 
the majority of such a church has always maintained 
the truth, or even been consistent in adhering to any 
doctrine? In the time of the Arian controversy, it is 
admitted that for a season the great majority of the 
church went after Arius, so much so that Athanasius 
felt the necessity of refuting the notion that truth was 
to be determined by numbers. But granting that a sec- 
tion of the church has always adhered to the truth, it is 
obvious to answer that that is begging the question, which 
is, What is the truth, and how may we ascertain it from 
the consent of the church? and, further, that it does 
not follow from the fact that either a minority or a 
majority professes a certain doctrine, that therefore it 
is true. In the third place, it is but child’s play, a mere 
retortion of worldly assertions, for Romanists to say to 
Protestants, We are the successors of the true church, 
and you of the false; and for Protestants to retort, No, 
we are the successors of the true church, and you of the 
false. 

The Protestant condemns the Romanist for making 


Tue PrINcIPLE on SourcE oF Torotocy. 201 


tradition a part of the rule of faith and duty. Is not 
the Protestant liable to a similar censure when he makes 
common consent a criterion of truth? Does he not 
represent it as a part of that rule? It would seem 
evident that when the question is, Which is the true 
ehurch, and what claimant is entitled to that high desig- 
nation? there can be but one arbiter that can decide, 
and that that arbiter is the Scriptures alone. They, and 
they alone, can and do determine alike which is the true 
church, and what is the value of common consent to any 
doctrine. 

(4) The Romanist doctrine of tradition involves, if it 
does not necessitate, his pernicious principle of devel- 
opment. 

There are two sorts of development which the Protest- 
ant regards as legitimate. The first is the development 
of the truths of Scripture by logical — and logical is 
necessary — inference. But it must ever be kept in 
mind that the development of any enunciation by logical 
inference makes no substantive addition to the original 
enunciation. It is, to use Kant’s language, simply 
ampliative, never synthetical. It is the explicit evolu- 
tion of the implicit contents of the enunciation devel- 
oped. The second kind of development allowed by the 
Protestant is the development of the church’s knowledge 
of the truths of Scripture. From the nature of the case 
— that is, from the limitations of the human faculties — 
there must be such development, on the supposition that 
the Scriptures are studied at all; and it is the testimony 
of history that such development has always been a fact. 
But while this subjective change takes place in the mind 


“ 
202 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


of the student of Scripture, and ought to proceed by 
increment of knowledge, objectively the truths of the 
Bible are unchanged and unchangeable. They are fixed 
stars in the firmament of revelation. 

Vastly different from this is the development con- 
tended for by the Romanist. I am not prepared to im- 
pute to the Church of Rome, whatever may have been 
the views of certain theologians, the mystic and semi- 
pantheistic doctrine, that in consequence of the incarna- 
tion Christ has entered into the church as an organic 
principle of life, which, by a natural process, is devel- 
oped in her growth and her final maturity —a detest- 
able doctrine, which disparages the objective facts of the 
priestly work of Christ, and positively insults the Holy 
Spirit by either depreciating or denying his supernatural 
offices. 

Nor am I prepared to attribute to the Church of Rome 
the theory of development as elaborately expounded by 
Cardinal Newman, for the reason that I do not know 
that his theory has ever been formally sanetioned by the 
authorities of that church. But I confess my inability 
to concur altogether with the view of Principal Cunning- 
ham, in his discussion of the “Romanist Theory of 
Development,” + that the theory of development pro- 
pounded by De Maistre and Mohler, and expanded by 
Newman, was suggested by the fact that profound inves- 
tigations into the history of doctrine were sufficient to 
beat off the Romanist from the maintenance of his old 
doctrine of apostolic tradition. Against this supposition 
is the violent improbability that a church professing to 

> Discussions of Church Principles. 


7 


Tue PrincreLE or Source or TuEeotogy. 203 


be immutable would ever abandon her old, accepted, 
formally stated doctrine of tradition. What there was 
novel in the position of these theologians was their im- 
plication, prompted perhaps by their vanity, that they 
had discovered “a more excellent way” to account for 
the development of the system of Rome than the ancient 
method of tradition. And what more natural than that 
such an implication should be resented? Were three 
speculators to upset the venerable doctrine of the church, 
and substitute another in its place? Was the influence 
of Trent, of Pius IV., of Bellarmin and Perrone to wane 
in the presence of theirs ? 

Moreover, I cannot perceive why, if their theory of 
development were accepted, stripped of the offensive 
implication adverted to, it could not be adjusted to the 
long-standing doctrine of Rome as to tradition. For if 
that theory is that the system of Christianity was at first 
but inchoate and rudimentary, and like every intelligent 
system, would depend upon the progress of the human 
faculties for the expansion and formal development of 
its germinal principles, what would hinder the Romanist 
from saying: Very well, Christianity, as a system of 
truth, embraced the two elements of Scripture and tra- 
dition? Why, then, if development were necessary, 
should it not be regarded as equally applicable to both 
these departments of truths, to tradition as well as to 
the Scriptures? Now this supposition, I am disposed 
to think, was acutally realized in the development of the 
system of Rome. She has always developed Scripture 
and tradition alike, indeed pari passu. History bears 
out this view. More than this, it may well be doubted 


204 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


whether, had not the belief in tradition existed, and 
there had been no development of tradition, there could 
ever have originated in early times the idea of the devel- 
opment of Scripture by substantive additions. I am, 
therefore, inclined to hold that the theory of tradition 
anteceded and gave rise to the theory of development, 
and consequently that the two theories, instead of being 
in conflict, are in perfect harmony with each other. De 
Maistre, Mohler and Newman, in rashly advocating the 
opposite view, have probably made a great mistake. At 
least, were I a Romanist, I would think so. 

The Church of Rome, by virtue of her doctrine of 
tradition, which empowers her not only to interpret, but 
to supplement the Scriptures, in connection with the 
twin and complementary doctrine of her infallibility, 
has, as a matter of fact, always developed the Serip- 
tures, not by the way of a logical evolution of its con- 
tents, but by the way of the creation of new, substantive 
additions. This is one of the main counts in the indict- 
ment of her principle of tradition, that she has dared to 
tamper with the written Word of God, and to quadrate 
its teachings with her needs. “Thus,” as Dr. Charles 
Hodge remarks, “the Lord’s Supper has been expanded 
into the doctrine of transubstantiation and the sacrifice 
of the mass; anointing the sick, into the sacrament of 
extreme unction; rules of discipline, into the sacrament 
of penance, of satisfactions, of indulgences, of purga- 
tory, and masses and prayers for the dead; the promi- 
nence of Peter, into the supremacy of the pope.” * 

(5) The Romanist doctrine of tradition is the prolific 


1 Syst. Theol., Vol. I., p. 120. 


Tur Princretp or Source or THEouoey. 205 


mother of incalculable moral evils. Reasoning from the 
necessity of things, we should be obliged to conclude that 
this must be so. We are forced a priorz to the conviction 
that the celibacy of the clergy, auricular confession, the 
sale or the dispensation of indulgences, the pardon of sin 
by priests, masses in which propitiatory sacrifices are 
offered for the living and the dead, must issue in cor- 
ruptions the most enormous. We would be, anittecedently 
to experience, shut up to the belief that, human nature 
being what it is, this result must follow from these 
sources with the certainty of effects from their causes. 
It is useless for Romanists to argue against this indu- 
bitable conclusion. They cannot prove that human 
nature is not what consciousness says it is. They cannot 
prove that certain causes put into operation will not 
tend to produce their appropriate effects. As well might 
they endeavor to prove that a stone let fall from a height 
will not gravitate towards the centre of the earth. This 
conclusion from the nature of the case would hardly be 
affected were there no historical proof to corroborate it, 
were the arcana of Rome locked up in her own bosom 
and veiled in impenetrable secrecy. 

But there is a plenty of historical evidence to sub- 
stantiate it. The appeal need not be taken to extra- 
Romanist authorities. The testimony of Romanists 
themselves is amply sufficient. One, however, is little 
disposed to insist upon the particulars of the fearful 
indictment — to stand at the mouth of hell in order to 
pry into its awful secrets. Our Saviour tells us that a 
tree is known by its fruits. Judged by this rule, the 
Romanist doctrine of tradition must be pronounced a 


206 Discussions or TrroLocioaL Questions. 


corrupt tree, inasmuch as it is laden with corrupt and 
poisonous fruit. 

The doctrine of tradition as held by the Church of 
Rome has been thus dwelt upon under the conviction 
that, as an element in her rule of faith and duty, its 
importance in her system cannot well be exaggerated. 
It affords the condition upon which free scope is given 
to the operation of what is generally regarded as the 
most prominent feature of her constitution, the principle 
of infallibility. To the consideration of that principle, 
which has been called the corner-stone of the Roman 
fabric, let us now turn. 

8. The next question which comes for consideration 
is that concerning the Romanist doctrine of infallibility. 

Some introductory observations will first be made, and 
then the question will be discussed. 

First. The question of the possession of infallibility 
and that of its seat are, to all intents and purposes, one 
and the same; for, as has been contended, if there were 
a supreme judge, and it was not known where he could 
be found, it would be little, if at all, better than if there 
were no judge. The question here, then, will be espe- 
cially in regard to the organ in which infallibility is 
claimed to reside. 

Without going back farther, we know that at the time 
when the Vatican Council was summoned to meet, there 
were two great theories in the Church of Rome in regard 
to the seat of infallibility, which struggled with each 
other for ascendency — the one asserting that infalli- 
bility had its seat in councils, the other affirming that it 
resided in the pope; the one known as the Gallican 


Tur Princrete or Source or TuEeotoay. 207 


theory, the other as the Ultramontane. The French 
ehurch, in maintaining what was known as the “Gallican 
Liberties,” had resisted the doctrine of papal supremacy 
and the related doctrine of papal infallibility, and there 
were outside of France powerful adherents of the same 
view. In the council the Cisalpine or Conciliar doctrine 
was ably advocated by such men as Dupanloup and 
Durboy, Strossmayer, Hefele, Schwarzenberg and Rau- 
seher, Maret, Ketteler, Haynald and Kenrick. After a 
warm and protracted struggle between the opposing 
parties the council, on the 18th of July, 1870, decided 
in favor of the papal theory. It decreed “that the 
Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, 
when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of 
all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic author- 
ity, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be 
held by the universal church, by the divine assistance 
promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that 
infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that 
his church should be endowed for defining doctrine 
regarding faith or morals; and that therefore such 
definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of 
themselves, and not from the consent of the church.” } 

*Docemus et divinitus revelatum dogma esse definimus: Ro- 
manum Pontificem, cum ex cathedra loquitur, id est, cum omnium 
Christianorum pastoris et doctoris munere fungens pro suprema 
sua Apostolica auctoritate doctrinam de fide vel moribus ab 
universa Ecelesia tenendam definit, per assistentiam divinam, 
ipsi in beato Petro promissam, ea infallibilitate pollere, quo 
divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina de fide 
vel moribus instructam esse voluit; ideo que ejusmodi Romani 


Pontificis definitiones ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesia, 
irreformabiles esse.” 


208 Duiscusstons or THroLoarcaL Questions. 


And now behold the curious and wonderful result! 
The very men who had stoutly and — shall it be said 4 — 
conscientiously resisted the pronunciation of the dogma 
of papal infallibility were caught in their own trap. All 
councils, they had contended, are infallible; therefore, 
this council is infallible; and this infallible council had 
decreed the infallibility of the pope. What was left 
them but to submit or to secede? With the exception of 
Déllinger and his followers, they gave in their adhesion. 
One would imagine that, in swallowing the bitter dose 
administered by the hands of Jesuits, they must in the 
region of their pride of opinion have suffered the throes 
and gripings of a mental cholera. It must have been a 
sore strait. If they yielded, they would eat their own 
words. If they resisted, they would recede from their 
own doctrine as to the infallibility of councils, and — 
lose their offices to boot. Lo! they changed their views 
with the facility with which they doffed their shirts, 
and, forgetting the difficulties of conscience, worked com- 
placently in the harness of papel supremacy and infalli- 
bility! What a comment on the folly, the absurdity, the 
diabolical delusion of a doctrine ascribing infallibility 
to men! The denial of infallibility to any but a collee- 
tion of men had logically enforced the affirmation of the 
infallibility of a single man! 

Secondly. The ground has sometimes been taken by 
Protestant writers that the two theories of collective and 
individual infallibility were closely associated with each 
other, and that the doctrine of the infallibility of eoun- 
cils led on, by a logical development, to the doctrine of 


Tue PRINCIPLE or Source oF THEoLoGy. 209 


the infallibility of the pope. From this opinion I am 
constrained to dissent for several reasons. 

In the first place, the two theories were treated by 
Romanist theologians themselves as irreconcilable with 
each other. The difference between them occasioned a 
long and bitter struggle, which culminated in the Vati- 
ean Council. Romanists themselves being judges, there 
was no bond of affinity between them; one was not the 
logical development of the other. 

In the second place, it is obvious to reason that the 
doctrine of episcopal infallibility — of bishops in con- 
clave — was in its very nature opposed to papal infalli- 
bility, the infallibility of a single supreme bishop. If 
a collection of bishops were alone infallible, it is per- 
 fectly clear that one bishop could not be alone infallible; 
and, on the other hand, if one alone was infallible, many 
could not be. The formal adoption, therefore, of the 
doctrine of the pope’s infallibility was the abandonment 
of the doctrine of the infallibility of councils. The 
former did not spring out of the latter, as a child from 
its mother; it killed the latter by a deliberate judicial 
act. 

In the third place, these doctrines are professedly 
based upon different scriptural grounds; that of collec 
tive infallibility upon the general promise of infalli- 
bility alleged to have been made by Christ to the church, 
that of individual infallibility upon the special promise 
of infallibility asserted to have been given by Christ to 
Peter, and in him to his successor in the primacy of the 
church — in the language of the Vatican Council, ipsi 


in beato Petro promissam. Now at the time of the Vati- 
14 


210 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


ean Council, the general promise to the church was held 
by the Cisalpines to have been made to the episcopate — 
the body of bishops. That council defined the applica- 
bility of the promise of infallibility to be alone to the 
supreme pontiff. 

Holding for these reasons that the two theories were 
incompatible, that the later was not logically developed 
out of the earlier, and that the adoption of the later was 
the displacement and sacrifice of the earlier, I do not 
feel called upon to discuss the doctrine of the infalli- 
bility of the church or of councils. Those who wish to 
see with what ability and irresistible force that now 
effete issue was met will have ample satisfaction in the 
works of the numerous divines who considered it, among 
whom I would make special reference to Chillingworth 
and Thornwell, and also to Dr. Schaff, in the first volume 
of his Creeds of Christendom. The argument here will, 
in the main, be directed to the question of the infalli- 
bility of the pope, the exclusive doctrine now maintained 
by the Church of Rome. 

Thirdly. The Church of Rome, in deliberately relin- 
quishing her older doctrine of the infallibility of the 
church, as such, and substituting for it another doctrine 
exclusive of it, has despoiled herself of the most plaus- 
ible and ingenious arguments by which the claim of 
infallibility was wont to be supported. She has, for 
example, deprived herself of the ability, in the effort 
to sustain that pretension, of appealing to the promise 
of the Spirit to guide the church into all truth, a promise 
not only given by Christ, but didactically inculeated by 
John in his first epistle. That promise, so general in its 


Tue PriInciPLEe or Source or THEotocy. 211 


character, cannot possibly be pleaded as given to one 
man. She has narrowed the question to the infalli- 
bility of the pope. The decree of the Vatican Council 
is in proof. It declared that the official definitions of 
the Roman pontiff are irreformable in themselves, and 
not because of the consent of the church — ex sese, non 
autem ex consensu ecclesiew. It would seem that she was 
given up to blindness in regard to her policy, and to have 
been left to the fatuity of inviting her enemies to an 
easy overthrow of her most characteristic and funda- 
mental principle. The road to the conquest of Rome 
now presented to her foes is like the dry bed of the 
Euphrates through which the troops of Cyrus marched 
unresisted into the heart of Babylon and to the seizure 
of her palace. The difference between the two cases is 
that the modern Babylon has herself opened the road 
which conducts her invaders to St. Peter’s and the Vati- 
can. 

So much has been written in relation to the dogma of 
papal infallibility that it is not necessary in this discus- 
sion to go into details. The argument will be brief; and 
I will take advantage of the liberty accorded to every 
writer, of treating a case according to his own concep- 
tion of it, and in the manner elected by himself. 

(1) In his argument for infallibility, the Romanist 
displays his usual taste for circulating syllogisms. If 
before the Vatican Council the advocate for the church’s 
infallibility had been asked, How are you assured of the 
infallible decisions of the church? he would have an- 
swered, By the authority of Scripture. Had he been 
asked, How are you assured of the authority of Scrip- 


212 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


ture? his answer would have been, By the infallible 
decision of the church. Now that, by the infallible 
decision of the church, infallibility is centred in the 
pope, if asked, How are you assured of the infallible 
decisions of the pope? he answers, By the authority of 
Scripture. If asked, How are you assured of the au- 
thority of Scripture? he must reply, By the infallible 
decision of the pope. This of itself is sufficient to 
explode the argument for papal infallibility into smoke. 

(2) The claim of papal infallibility has not the least 
support from the Scriptures; but on the contrary the 
attempt to make good the claim involves a fearful twist- 
ing and perversion of their meaning. 

What, briefly, is the argument? Christ constituted 
Peter the primate of the apostolic college and the human 
head of the church. This necessarily carried with it the 
possession of infallibility. The pope is the ecclesiastical 
successor of Peter, and is therefore the bishop of bishops, 
and ihe supreme human head of the church, and conse- 
quently possessed of infallibility. To Peter were com- 
mitted the keys of the kingdom of heaven. They were 
not buried with Peter; the pope wears them at his 
girdle. Now if in this chain one link is wanting, the 
chain is worthless. Let us examine the links. Granted 
that Christ assigned to Peter some superiority of per- 
sonal honor among the apostles, how does that prove the 
conferment upon him of the official primacy of the 
apostolic college, and the headship of the church? What 
are the facts? They are thus tersely presented by an- 
other:1 “The New Testament is its own best inter- 


1 Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, Vol. I., p. 185. 


Tur Prrxcrete or Source or TuEotoey. 213 


preter. It shows no single example of an exercise of 
jurisdiction of Peter over the other apostles, but the 
very reverse. He himself, in his epistles, disowns and 
prophetically warns his fellow-presbyters against the 
hierarchical spirit, exhorting them, instead of being 
lords over God’s heritage, to be ensamples to his flock 
(1 Peter v. 1-4). Paul and John were perfectly inde- 
pendent of him, as the Acts and epistles prove. Paul 
even openly administered to him a rebuke at Antioch. 
At the council of Jerusalem, James seems to have pre- 
sided; at all events he proposed the compromise which 
was adopted by the apostles, elders, and brethren; Peter 
was indeed one of the leading speakers, but he signifi- 
cantly advocated the truly evangelical principle of salva- 
tion by faith alone, and protested against human bond- 
age.” There is not a shadow of proof from the Scrip- 
tures of the first link in the argument. 

But even if Peter had been made primate of the 
apostles and head of the church, what proof is there that 
his extraordinary powers descended to personal succes- 
sors after his death ? 

In the first place, there is absolutely no proof from 
Scripture to show that Christ appointed an official suc- 
cessor of Peter, who should inherit his prerogatives, and 
it is certain that without such an appointment none had 
the least right to exist. 

In the second place, there is as little proof that Christ 
appointed any official successors of the apostles gen- 
erally — that is, men who should be invested with the 
apostolic office. The marks of an apostle are well known. 
What claimant to be an official successor of the apostles 


214 Discussions or Turotoarcat Questions. 


ever possessed them? Which of them ever saw Christ 
in the flesh? Which of them ever wrought genuine mir- 
acles? When was there ever known one of them who 
bore the unmistakable credentials of the apostolie office 2 
Echo answers, When? But suppose, for the sake of 
argument, that God designed that there should be, in 
some modified form, official successors of the apostles, 
what spark of evidence is there that one of them was 
intended to be primate of his contemporaries in the high 
office, and head of the whole church ? 

In the third place, were the last supposition possible, 
what ghost of a proof can be adduced that this person 
designed to be clothed with this extraordinary and sin- 
gular power over his fellow-successors of the apostles 
was to be the pope of Rome ? 

In the fourth place, how, if that were so, did it come 
to pass that Christ, in making the appointment, insti- 
tuted no providential arrangement for carrying it into 
effect for centuries after the apostles fell asleep? How 
happened it that infinite wisdom and power and love 
-for the church provided no papal successor to Peter for 
at least six centuries after Peter’s death? The gap has 
to be filled in by the Romanist, but alas! the hopelessness 
of the task is evinced by the fact that he has never under- 
taken it. Some Jesuit would have tried it, if fictions 
could have had any weight against the undeniable testi- 
mony of history. 

In the fifth place, Scripture nowhere makes mention 
of any head of the church save One — our adorable 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and any creation of 
another head is a blasphemous usurpation of his pre- 


Tur PrrncieLe or Source oF Turoiogy. 215 


rogative. No wonder that when Pope Pius IX. arose 
to read the dogma which deified him, the darkness was 
so thick that he was obliged to invoke the light of a 
candle — fit symbol of his own evanescent glory — and 
that his recital of his apotheosis was accompanied by 
frightful blazes of lightning and terrific crashes of 
thunder. This was interpreted by his deluded adherents 
to signify the emphatic sanction which heaven had lent 
to the act of piety they had performed! 

This link of the argument, which was hitched on to 
the empty space from which the first was removed, shares 
the same fate — it dissolves into nothingness. As really 
there are only two links, the whole argument vanishes 
into air. 

(3) History utterly overthrows the doctrine of papal 
infallibility. 

How could there have been an infallible pope at a 
time when there was no pope to be either fallible or 
infallible? It is the testimony of history that up to the 
beginning of the seventh century there was not only no 
such infallible pope as the Vatican Council affected to 
proclaim, but no pope who was the primate of the suc- 
cessors of the apostles, bishop of bishops, and supreme 
head of the church. “According to Jerome,” says 
Thornwell, “every bishop, whether of Rome, Eugubium, 
Constantinople, Rhegium, Alexandria or Tanis, pos- 
sessed the same merit and the same priesthood.’ ‘There 
is but one bishopric in the church,’ says Cyprian,” ‘and 
every bishop has an undivided portion init’ . . . In 
his letter to Pope Stephen this doctrine is still more dis- 


1 Epist. ci., ad Evang. ?De Unitat. Ecclesie, § V. 


216 Discusstons or THEoLoatcaL QuestTrons. 


tinetly announced, but it is fully brought out in the 
speech which he delivered at the opening of the great 
council of Carthage. ‘For no one of us,’ says he, ‘makes 
himself bishop of bishops, and compels his colleagues 
by tyrannical power to a necessity of complying; for- 
as much as every bishop, according to the liberty and 
power that is granted him, is free to act as he sees fit, 
and can no more be judged by others than he ean judge 
them. But let us expect the judgment of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who only hath power both to invest us with the 
government of his church, and to pass sentence upon 
our actions.’ ” 4 

But why cite the ante-Nicene fathers, when we have 
the decisive testimony of Gregory the Great, called the 
last of the Latin fathers, the bishop of Rome (590-604), 
who uses these emphatic words, “Ego fidenter dico, quod 
quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat vel vocari de- 
siderat, in elatione sua, Antichristum precurrit.”2® “I 
affirm with confidence that whoever calls himself or 
wishes to be called universal bishop (priest), in this 
lifting up of himself is the forerunner of Antichrist.” 
This settles the point that there was no supreme head 
of the church, no infallible pope, at the time when 
Gregory the Great himself bore the unscriptural title of 
the Bishop of Rome. 

Now in the interval between the apostles and the first 
bona fide pope, where was the infallibility? Was it in 
Linus, in whose ecclesiastical loins the popes claimed to 
have been — potentially, though not actually a pope? 
Alas! for their cause, he was, if there is any truth in 


* Coll. Writ., Voi. III., pp. 481, 482. *Epist., Lib. VI., Epist. 30, 


Tue Princiete or Sourcrt or Turotoey. 217 


Scripture, merely an humble presbyter, codrdinate 
with his fellow-presbyters, and, according to their own 
principle, absurd enough, it is true, but still their own 
principle, that one cannot communicate a power he does 
not possess — for every ecclesiastical gift is conferred 
alone by Christ — how could he have entailed an infalli- 
bility which he did not have? Where was the infalli- 
bility? Was it in general councils, and capable of being 
conferred by them? That will not answer; there was 
no general council until the first quarter of the fourth 
century. Was it in the pastors of the church? Then in 
some, or in all. If in some, who were they? and why did 
they not infallibly determine the religious controversies 
of their day? If in all, how was it that they wrangled 
and fought about fundamental doctrines? Their only 
chance is to bridge the chasm between the first infallible 
pope and Peter; and that could as easily be accom- 
plished as to build a railway from the earth to the 
moon. 

But let us hear history further in regard to the infalli- 
bility of the popes, “The sixth ecumenical council 
(held in Constantinople 680) condemned and excom- 
municated Pope Honorius I. (625-638) ‘as a heretic 
(Monothelite), who, with the help of the old serpent, had 
seattered deadly error.’ This anathema was solemnly 
repeated by the seventh and by the eighth ecumenical 
councils (787 and 869), and even by the popes them- 
selves, who, down to the eleventh century, in a solemn 
oath at their accession, indorsed the sixth cecumenical 
council, and pronounced ‘an eternal anathema’ on the 
authors of the Monothelite heresy, together with Pope 


218 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


Honorius, ‘because he had given aid and comfort to the 
perverse doctrines of the heretics.’ This papal oath was 
probably prescribed by Gregory II. at the beginning of 
the eighth century, and was found in the Liber Diurnus 
and Inber Pontificalis down to the eleventh century. 
Even the editions of the Roman Breviary, before the 
sixteenth century, reiterated the charge of heresy against 
Honorius. Pope Leo II. strongly confirmed the decree 
of the council against his predecessor Honorius, and de- 
nounced him as one who ‘endeavored by profane treason 
to overthrow the immaculate faith of the Roman 
Church’ (qui hance apostolicam ecclesiam non apostolice 
traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana proditione 
immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est. See Mansi, 
Concilia, Tom. X1., p. 731.” 

“History knows of other heretical popes. Zepirinus 
(201-219) and Callistus (219-223) were Patripas- 
sians; Liberius (358) signed an Arian creed, and con- 
demned Athanasius, ‘the father of orthodoxy,’ who men- 
tions the fact with indignation; Felix II. was a decided 
Arian; Zosimus (417) at first indorsed the heresy of 
Pelagius and Celestius, whom his predecessor, Innocent 
I. had condemned; Vigilius (538-555) vacillated be- 
tween two opposite decisions during the Three Chapter 
controversy, and thereby produced a long schism in the 
West; John XXII. (d. 1334) denounced a certain 
opinion of Nicholas III. and Clement VY. as heretical ; 
several popes taught the universal depravity of men in a 
manner that clearly includes the Virgin Mary, and is 
irreconcilable with the recent doctrine of the immaculate 
conception; Sixtus V. issued an edition of the Latin 


Tue Principrte or Source oF THEoLoGy. 219 


Bible with innumerable blunders, partly of his own 
making, and deelared it the only true, authentic text. 
Bellarmin, the great Roman controversialist and infal- 
libilist, could not deny the facts, and advised the print- 
ing of a new edition with the bold statement in the 
preface, charging the errors of the infallible pope upon 
the fallible printer, though the pope himself had cor- 
rected the proofs. Pius [X., who proclaimed his own 
infallibility, started out [as pope] as a political re- 
former, and advocate of Italian unity, but afterwards 
detested and condemned it as the worst enemy of Chris- 
tianity.”-- The author of this statement might have 
added his words found elsewhere, that, by this infallible 
interpreter of the Bible, in his Syllabus of 1864, “Bible 
societies are put on a par with socialism and commun- 
ism, as pestilential errors worthy of the severest repro- 
bation.” 

History makes sad havoe of the doctrine of papal in- 
fallibility. But what matter? If the facts are against 
us, contended the infallibilists, so much the worse for 
the facts! 

(4) Some things must be said in regard to the decree 
of infallibility by the Vatican Council. 

Hither the council was fallible or it was infallible. 

Let us, first, take the supposition that it was fallible. 
Tt would follow that it might have decided truly, and 
that it might have decided erroneously. According to 
the supposition, it was fallible: it might have erred. 
But if so, the decree of the infallibility of the pope was 
founded upon a fallible decision — at least one arrived 


*Schaff in Schaff-Herzog Encyc., Art. Infallib. of the Pope. 


220 Discusstons or THEroLoarcat Questions. 


at by a fallible body; and infallibility would rest upon 
fallibility. It was, however, necessary that there should 
be infallible certainty attaching to the dogma; for other- 
wise it is not infallibly certain that the pope is infallible. 
Water cannot rise higher than its source. If the council 
was not infallible in pronouncing the pope infallible, 
neither is the pope certainly infallible, unless there be 
some other ground than the infallible authority of the 
council upon which the pope’s infallibility infallibly 
rests. We have seen that there zs no other ground. The 
fact is, that the council itself was split, as there was a 
party of powerful men in it who were definitely opposed 
to the doctrine of papal infallibility. It comes to this, 
that the dogma of the infallibility of the pope was the 
creature of that council; and then it is clear that if the 
council was fallible, so must be the pope. A fallible 
council could not infallibly determine the question. In 
other words, we have a fallible infallibility. 

This is not the worst of it. The majority, the great 
majority of the council — that is, the deciding body — 
were utterly opposed to the infallibility of any council, 
and, therefore, of this council. They believed and held 
the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope versus the 
infallibility of councils. They followed the lead of 
Bellarmin and Perrone, with other influential theolo- 
gians. This constituted probably the chief “plank in 
the platform” of the Ultramontane or Jesuitical party. 
As they were practically the council, it follows that the 
council itself held the doctrine of its own fallibility. 
The supposition, therefore, of the fallibility of the 
council upon which the preceding hypothetical argument 


Tuer PrincieLe or Source oF Tueotocy. 221 


was based, was not a supposition with the council; it 
was their doctrine. 

It cannot be objected that there may be more than 
one seat of infallibility, just as there was more than one 
infallible apostle; for, in the first place, the council 
itself, so far from holding such a view, limited the seat 
of infallibility to the pope. In the second place, no one 
apostle was the supreme head and infallible teacher of 
the whole church. As the infallibilists and the council 
made that claim for the pope, there is no analogy be- 
tween the cases. In the third place, there cannot be two 
supreme heads and oracles of the same body. 

Further, what an argument was this in the hands of 
the anti-infallibilists in the council! If they did not 
use it, they missed a great chance. ‘If thy did, they ad- 
dressed an irresistible ad hominem argument to the con- 
cessions of every infallibilist in the body, and its failure 
to produce conviction is only another instance illustrat- 
ing the maxim, “Might makes right.” 

Let us, on the other hand, take the supposition that 
the council was infallible. 

In the first place, as it decided, after protracted argu- 
ment between the infallibilists and the anti-infallibilists, 
to pronounce the pope infallible, it formally surrendered 
its claim, and the claim of every future council, to in- 
fallibility. Now what right had it to abdicate the seat 
of infallibility, and transfer it to an individual ? 
Whence had it derived so exalted a prerogative? Pro- 
fessedly from the apostles by divine gift. Every bishop 
was a successor of the apostles, and the collection of 
bishops in a council possessed apostolic infallibility. 


222 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


But as the apostles received their infallible prerogative 
from God, so did the councils. What right, then, had 
this council to transfer this divinely imparted power to 
a single individual, when their theory was that it was 
lodged in a collection of bishops assembled as a council ? 
If, according to the supposition, the Vatican Council was 
infallible, it perpetrated a horrible enormity in alienat- 
ing from itself, and assigning to another, and that a 
single person, an attribute which Christ had bestowed 
upon it. 

In the second place, if this council was infallible, all 
preceding cecumenical councils were infallible. If not, 
how came this council to be infallible, while the others 
were not? But if, from the necessity of the case, pre- 
vious cecumenical councils, including the Couneil of 
Trent, were infallible, how happened it that those in- 
fallible bodies did not know of this great truth of the 
infallibility of popes, which the infallible council of the 
Vatican so clearly apprehended and so solemnly pro- 
claimed? This is a wonder of wonders, and it may be 
left to the advocates of conciliar infallibility to furnish 
its explanation. 

In the third place, the question arises, Where was the 
seat of infallibility in the whole past history of the 
church? It certainly was not in the early local bishops 
of the Roman Church. The supposition is absurd. If 
it was anywhere, it must have been in those great general 
councils which stamped out heresy, and fixed the type of 
doctrine for the church. But if so, what a stupendous 
change occurred, when an cecumenical council deposed 
councils from their high seat and enthroned in it the 


Tur PRincripLe or Source or TuEoLocy. 223 


pope of Rome! What then becomes of the vaunted im- 
mutability of the church? If it be replied that the 
question of the seat of infallibility had never been set- 
tled, that is all one with saying that the doctrine of 
infallibility had not been settled; for it is idle to talk 
of the infallibility of the church in the general, with no 
special organ to give it expression. The doctrine of 
infallibility, therefore, was not settled in the past, but it 
is settled now; and how that relieves the charge of muta- 
bility a Jesuit alone may determine. 'To say that the 
church had not defined the doctrine of infallibility until 
the Vatican Council, in the nineteenth century, is to 
admit her mutability at a most vital, a tremendously 
vital, point. What becomes of her authority as a 
teacher? 

This brings us to the last, and, to my mind, the 
clearest and strongest argument against papal infalli- 
bility. 

(5) Infallibility supposes inspiration; inspiration 
supposes miraculous credentials; the pope fails to fur- 
nish miraculous credentials of his inspiration; there- 
fore, the pope is not infallible. 

First. Infallibility supposes inspiration. In the first 
place, sin has not only destroyed the spiritual life of 
man, but deranged his reason, so far as the processes of 
the thinking faculty in regard to religion are concerned. 
The fundamental laws of his rational nature still exist, 
but they are either not recognized, or are so falsely 
interpreted and applied in the operations of thought, 
either so disjoined from those operations in the quest 
of consistency of thought, or so perverted by them, that 


224 Discussions or TuxoLocicaL Questions. 


those fundamental laws become practically ineffective. 
The fact of sin, its revolutionizing influence upon the 
rational faculty, renders human infallibility impossible 
without the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit. 

In the second place, were the reason what it was pre- 
viously to the occurrence of sin, in its unimpaired in- 
tegrity, it would be utterly incompetent to deal with the 
moral emergencies and the religious questions created by 
sin. The a fortiori argument here is too obvious to be 
pressed. 

In the third place, the prophets and apostles were ren- 
dered infallible by the supernatural gift of inspiration. 
This need not be argued, since the Church of Rome her- 
self explicitly acknowledges the fact, and formally takes 
the ground that this inspiration was by the dictation of 
the Holy Ghost. 

In the fourth place, as according to the Romanist, the 
pope is the infallible successor of the infallible Apostle 
Peter, he must get his infallibility from the same source 
from which his ecclesiastical ancestor derived his — the 
inspiration of the Holy Spirit; and — 

_In the fifth place, the uniform experience and observa- 
tion of mankind establishes the fact of the fallibility of 
men. The conclusion is irresistible that no sinful, err- 
‘ing man can be made infallible, except by the extraordi- 
nary gift of supernatural inspiration. 

Secondly. Inspiration supposes miraculous creden- 
tials. 

By a miracle I mean an event which in its own nature 
proves that it was produced by the immediate efficiency 
of God. If such events occur in an evidently designed 


Tue PrincieLe or Source oF THEoLoey. 225 


connection with a claim to supernatural and divine in- 
fluence the claim is absolutely established; if not, it is 
worthless. 

In the first place, reason requires that an alleged ex- 
traordinary interposition of God in the religious affairs 
of mankind should be substantiated by extraordinary 
proofs. So great is the danger of deception in this 
matter, and so many are the fraudulent pretensions on 
the part of deluded, or ambitious and designing men to 
be the instruments of such a divine intervention; so 
inconceivably precious are the interests involved. both on 
the side of God’s glory, and on the side of the highest 
and everlasting welfare of man, that nothing short of 
demonstrative evidence is sufficient to meet the case. 
Now a professed revelation from heaven touching the 
religious condition, duties and destinies of men claims 
to be just such an extraordinary intervention of God. 
But the medium through which, if we judge from facts, 
such a revelation is communicated is supernatural in- 
spiration. Certain men are inspired to be its imparters. 
It is not necessary to expand these obvious considera- 
tions, inasmuch as the parties to the present controversy, 
the Romanist and the Protestant, are agreed in regard 
to them. They both admit that God has met the just 
requirement of reason, and furnished miraculous — that 
is, the most extraordinary — proofs of alleged inspira- 
tion. 

In the second place, not only are the parties theoreti- 
eally agreed in the premises, but also as to the facts. 
Both hold that the inspiration of the prophets and the 

15 


226 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


apostles was attested by miraculous proofs, either 
directly or indirectly. 

To argue further about the matter would be superflu- 
ous. By common consent, it is allowed that inspiration 
supposes miraculous credentials. 

Thirdly. The pope fails to furnish miraculous ere- 
dentials of his inspiration. 

We have seen that infallibility is grounded in inspira- 
tion; that the claim to inspiration behooves to be sup- 
ported by miraculous proofs; consequently as the pope 
claims to be infallible, and therefore inspired, it is neces- 
sary that he produce miraculous credentials of preten- 
sions so extraordinary. Let us attend to the exact state 
of the question. It is not now whether the Church of 
Rome can furnish miracles in attestation of her infal- 
lible authority. The great Vatican Council has con- 
signed that to the limbo of dead questions. It must be 
insisted upon that the question is whether the pope can 
furnish miraculous proofs of his inspiration and conse- 
quent infallibility. 

Even if the reputed miracles of Rome could be ad- 
duced in favor of the pope’s claims, they would fail to 
prove anything. Such miracles as the visits of the 
Virgin Mary to her votaries, the weeping of statues of 
the Virgin, the healing of pilgrims at certain sacred 
shrines, the recovery of the diseased or maimed by the 
application to them of relics of saints, the liquefaction 
of the blood of St. Januarius, and the like, are all im- 
peachable. It would not require the ingenuity of the 


rationalist to explain them upon natural principles. 


They are all—to use no stronger terms — palpably 


Tur Principe or Source or Turotoay. 227 


inadequate to substantiate a claim to inspiration. Nor 
could it be pleaded that these past miracles were capable 
of being adduced in support of the infallibility of past 
popes. Who can show that they were ever used for that 
specific purpose? Much less, then, it is needless to say, 
can they be alleged to support the claim of infallibility 
by a present pope. How, it may be asked, could these 
past miraculous credentials be advanced in attestation 
of a papal infallibility which was first declared in dog- 
matic form by a council which convened in 1870? What 
an extraordinary prolepsis! And if it be said that these 
miracles continue to occur now, and therefore may be 
appealed to in support of the claim made for the pope 
now, one craves to know what extraordinary cause has 
operated to produce so astonishing a change in their 
evidential office. Formerly they proved the infallible 
authority of the church in general; now they prove the 
inspiration and infallibility of the pope in particular! 

No. The pope must have new miracles specially de- 
signed to prove his inspiration and infallibility. Where 
are they? This is a snap judgment, it may be urged ; 
the pope may yet work miracles. To this I answer: If 
he could have wrought miracles, if he could have raised 
the dead, he would have done so. The fact that he has 
not done so, proves that he cannot, and therefore that he 
never will. Pio Nono never did; if Leo XIII. is not 
quick about it, he will soon be in the same category. 

The conclusion is that the pope fails to furnish mirac- 
ulous credentials of his claim to inspiration, and, there- 
fore, he is not infallible. 

It remains to say a few words concerning the connec- 


228 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


tion between the infallibility of the pope and the rule 
of faith and duty — the topic under discussion. The 
connection is plain. The exposition of a law by a 
supreme court is the law. The pope is the infallible 
and supreme judge of the meaning of Scripture and 
tradition, which together constitute the rule. The sense, 
therefore, which the pope puts into Seripture and tradi- 
tion is the ultimate rule of faith and duty to the Church 
of Rome. 


APPENDIX TO THE Discussion oF RoMANISM: 
On the Destiny of the Church of Rome. 


The preceding argument dealt with the question of 
the Romanist rule of faith and duty as logically 
pertinent to the department of Introductory Theology, 
which is under treatment. Some additional remarks, 
by way of an appendix, of the nature of a digression, 
will be made in regard to the predicted doom of the 
apostate system of Rome. 

I. Some preliminary questions must be attended to, 
so as to ensure clearness. The place of the Church of 
Rome in prophecy must be ascertained. 

1. There is some difference of opinion as to the 
propriety of applying the terms Antichrist and Anti- 
christian to Rome. Any doctrine or system which is 
definitely opposed, to Christ and Christianity is anti- 
christian, and any power which maintains that attitude 
is Antichrist. The Apostle John says that there were 
many antichrists in his time. No one system, therefore, 


2 


Tue PRINCIPLE orn Source oF THEOLOGY. 229 


can be regarded as exclusively antichristian, and no one 
power can properly be denominated the only Antichrist. 
Some have been prominent at certain periods, and others 
at others. For centuries past two apostate powers have 
been entitled to this “bad eminence”—Mohammedanism 
and popery. In Christendom the papal power has been 
predominantly antichristian. Infidelity, although anti- 
christian, has not the consolidated unity, the organized 
resources and the aggressive vigor of the papacy. It is 
idle for any Protestant, on the ground of its nominal 
adhesion to Christianity, to deny that the Church of 
Rome is antichristian. The reformers, Continental and 
British, had no such scruples; and, as the infallible 
pope is now officially declared and recognized to be the 
head and front — the exponent and representative of 
that church — it is equally idle for him to deny that the 
pope is Antichrist. So far for the present. But listen- 
ing to prophecy, we learn that before the close of this 
ante-millennial period, another power will arise — Dan- 
iel’s wilful king— who, after first supporting, will 
destroy the papal system as such, absorb it into his own 
gigantic imperialism, and arrogating to himself univer- 
sal secular and ecclesiastical supremacy, will strike a 
last desperate blow at the existence of the true Christian 
religion before the mediatorial Sovereign shall introduce 
his millennial reign. This, I take it, will be the final 
and consummate development of Antichrist before the 
millennium. 

2. The Church of Rome is the “little horn” of Daniel, 
and the “two-horned beast” of the Apocalypse; for, first, 
Daniel declares that the saints of God would be delivered 


230 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


into the hands of the power designated by the little horn 
arising out of the Roman beast. This matches the 
Roman Oatholic power, for the reasons that it sprung 
from the old Roman dominion, and it was the power 
into the hands of which the saints were delivered, when, 
by imperial decree, the bishop of Rome was made bishop 
of bishops and supreme head of the church. Secondly, 
John, in Revelation, predicts that the two-horned beast 
should spring up among the ten horns of the Roman 
beast — that is, the ten kingdoms into which the Roman 
empire was divided; and there is no other power to 
which this symbolic description is applicable but the 
papal. 

It need occasion no difficulty that two apparently 
discrepant symbols are employed, the one pointing to 
unity, the other to duality. It is one and the same power 
which manifests itself in two great forms. What the 
two forms indicated in the prophecy are, I undertake 
not to say. Some commentators take them to be the 
papal secular and regular clergy. It may be that they 
are the temporal and the spiritual power claimed by 
Rome. These two, by Romanists themselves, are held 
to be complementary to each other and indissolubly 
united, so that it is argued that the maintenance of the 
spiritual power is suspended upon the preservation of 
the temporal. This grounds the urgent call to the adhe- 
rents of the pope, now that his temporal power is either 
destroyed or badly impaired, to make every effort to 
restore that power to the head of the church and rightful 
ruler of the world.!1. And this may yet lead on to a 


1“Rector Orbis,” 


Tur PRIncIPLE on SourRcE oF THEOLOGY. 231 


conflict the bitterness and the extent of which no one can 
estimate, except from the apocalyptic prediction of that 
struggle of the nations, which is to ultimate in the 
fateful battle of Armageddon, in the great day of God 
Almighty. 

While this subject is before us, it may be well to point 
out a distinction, sometimes overlooked, between the 
temporal sovereignty of the pope— over the city of 
Rome and the Papal States; his temporal supremacy — 
over princes, kings and nations; and his spiritual 
supremacy—over the church as a spiritual organization. 
It is evident that the first two of these kinds of power 
come under the denomination temporal, and that the 
division temporal and spiritual exhausts the notion of 
papal power. 

3. The Church of Rome alone answers to the fearful 
prophetic portraiture of “the Man of Sin,” of “the 
Mystery of Iniquity,” of “that Wicked,” given by Paul 
in Thessalonians and by John in Revelation. It sat 
for that picture. It is conceded by both Romanists 
and Protestants that Rome was thus prophetically de- 
lineated. Now, either pagan Rome or ecclesiastical 
Rome was intended. There was no other power future 
to the seer of Patmos and the apostle to the Gentiles to 
which the description could apply. We must elect 
between pagan and papal Rome. Pagan Rome is out 
of the question; for — 

First. There was no mystery to Paul and John in 
pagan Rome. Her antichristian policy and methods 
were open and above-board. She was the avowed enemy 
of the Christian church. She announced herself the 


232 Discussions or THEoLoGicaL QuEsTIONs. 


truculent butcher of Christians; and the undisguised 
determination to extirpate them from the earth was 
ferociously and relentlessly pursued, until her inability 
to annihilate the immortal stood confessed. What mys- 
tery was there in all this? 

Secondly. What power hindered the development of 
pagan Rome? She had already developed into the 
mistress of the known world. What obstacle stood in 
the way of her power? But Paul said that there was 
a hindrance to the development of the Mystery of 
Iniquity of which he wrote, and a hindrance that would 
continue to operate until taken out of the way. This 
consideration is in itself conclusive: 

Thirdly. Paul says, “Let no man deceive you by any 
means: for that day shall not come except there come a 
falling away [an apostasy] first, and that man of sin be 
revealed, the son of perdition,” etc. How could the 
apostle have conditioned the coming of the pagan Roman 
ascendency upon a falling away or apostasy yet future 
in his day? Had not pagan Rome already come? Fall- 
ing away or apostasy supposes the truth of Christianity 
previously held. When did pagan Rome ever hold the 
truth of Christianity and apostatize from it? 

Further, the apostle says that this coming power 
would sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he 
is God. When did pagan Rome ever sit in the church 
of Christ, or sit in any Christian edifice ? 

Fourthly. John, in the Apocalypse, describes the 
destruction of this power, with the name Mystery writ- 
ten upon its front, as to occur in the far distant future, 
just preceding the dawn of the millennial period. Was 


Tue Principle or Source oF THEOLOGY. 233 


this true of pagan Rome, which was overthrown but a 
few centuries after John wrote? Could it possibly have 
been true of a power which we, who have not yet descried 
the faint day-spring of the millennial morning, know to 
have been destroyed about sixteen centuries ago? 

These considerations suffice to show that Paul and 
John were not portraying pagan Rome in those awful 
pictures in Thessalonians and Revelation. 

As there were only two possible suppositions in the 
ease, and the first has been destroyed, it follows that the 
second is established — that Paul and John character- 
ized papal Rome; and I shall do no more than cite the 
striking and eloquent words of Canon Wordsworth, of 
the English Church, upon the point. “Heathen Rome 
persecuting the church,” says he, “was no mystery. But 
a Christian church, calling herself the Mother of Chris- 
tendom, and yet drunken with the blood of the saints — 
this is indeed a mystery. A Christian church, boasting 
herself the Bride, and being the Harlot; styling herself 
Sion, and being Babylon — this is indeed a mystery. 
A mystery indeed it is, that when she says to all, ‘Come 
unto me,’ the voice from heaven should ery, ‘Come out 
of her, my people.’ A mystery indeed it is, that she 
who boasts her sanctity should become the habitation of 
devils: that she who claims to be infallible should be 
said to corrupt the earth; that a self-named Mother of 
Churches should be called by the Spirit the Mother of 
Abominations; that she who boasts tc be indefectible 
should in one day be destroyed, and that apostles should 
rejoice at her fall; that she who holds, as she says, in 
her hands the keys of heaven should be cast into the lake 


234 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


of fire by Him who has the keys of hell. All this, in 
truth, is a great and awful mystery.” ? 

4. The Church of Rome is the woman of the Apoca- 
lypse, the mother of harlots, drunken with the blood of 
the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, 
the persecutor of another woman — the true chureh of 
Christ that fled into the wilderness from her pursuit. 

That the Church of Rome is this woman is evident. 

First. She is said to sit upon many waters — that is, 
to be enthroned upon multitudes of peoples and nations, 
as the symbol is expressly interpreted in Revelation. 
This is true of the Church of Rome. 

Second. She is represented as sitting “upon a scarlet 
colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven 
heads and ten horns.” This points as with the finger to 
the Roman power which supported the woman. There 
are two beasts symbolized in prophecy —the Roman 
secular power and the papal power; the great beast of 
Daniel and the Apocalypse, and the two-horned beast, 
Daniel’s little horn. It is the latter, which in the diversi- 
fication of the symbols is characterized as the apostate 
woman. Now what ecclesiastical power has been sup- 
ported by the Roman secular power save the Church of © 
Rome? 

Thirdly. The woman is pictured as holding in her 
hand a golden cup “full of abominations and filthiness 
of her fornication,’ with which she intoxicates the 
nations. The Church of Rome requires men to surren- 
der their reason and conscience to her will. “And then 
she pours into their minds a delirious draught of strange 


1On the Apocalypse, pp. 307, 308, 


Tue PRINCIPLE oR SouRCE oF THEOLOGY. 235 


doctrines, with which she makes their heads dizzy, and 
their eyes to swim, and their feet to stagger; and this 
swoonlike phrensy she calls Faith.” 

The woman entices “the kings of the earth to commit 
fornication with her,” and they are said to “give their 
power and strength to the beast.” ‘These words are 
strikingly characteristic of papal Rome. She has traf- 
ficked and tampered with all the kings and nations of the 
earth. . . . She has caressed and cajoled them with 
amatory gifts of flowers, pictures and trinkets, beads 
and relics, crucifixes, and Agnus Deis, and consecrated 
plumes and banners. She has drenched and drugged 
their senses with love-potions of bewitching smiles and 
fascinating words; and has thus beguiled them of their 
faith, their courage, and their power. Like another 
Delilah, she has made the Samsons of this world to sleep 
softly in her lap. She has then shorn them of their 
strength. And she has captivated, and still captivates, 
the affections of their prelates and clergy, by entangling 
them in the strong and subtle meshes of oaths of vassal- 
age to herself, and has thus stolen the hearts of subjects 
from their sovereigns, and has made kingdoms to hang 
upon her lips for the loyalty of their people; and so, in 
her dream of universal empire, she has made the world 
a fief of Rome. Yes, . . . and such is the spell with 
which she still enchains nations, that even they who are 
excommunicated by her, and whose heroic Virgin-Queen 
[Elizabeth] was anathematized by her as an usurper, 
and whose land is now partitioned out into papal dio- 
ceses, as if it were a Roman province, and the names of 
whose greatest cities are given away by her as if they 


236 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


were Italian villages, are fain to seek intercourse with 
her without requiring any retractation of the unrighteous 
oaths which she imposes on English subjects, or any 
revocation of the imprecatory anathemas which she has 
denounced on English sovereigns; and as if it were 
possible for us to sever what she declares indissolubly 
united — her temporal and spiritual sway.” 

The development of facts has lent far greater empha- 
sis to these solemn and impressive words of Canon 
Wordsworth than when he wrote them; and much of 
what he said of England applies with redoubled force 
to the United States of America. No sagacity is requi- 
site to perceive that the intention of Rome is to grasp 
the sovereignty of this once highly-favored Protestant 
land. And why not, since the pope, as she claims, is 
the infallible monarch of the world ? 

Fourthly. The woman is represented as “arrayed in 
purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and 
precious stones and pearls.” “Let us now inquire,” says 
Dr. Wordsworth, “whether this description is applicable 
to the Church of Rome. With this view let us refer — 
not to any private sources — but to the authorized Book 
of Sacred Ceremonies of the Church of Rome. 

“This book, sometimes called Ceremoniale Romanum, 
is written in Latin, and was compiled three hundred and 
thirty years ago by Marcellus, a Roman Catholic Arch- 
bishop, and is dedicated to Pope Leo X. Let us turn to 
that portion of this volume which describes the first 
public appearance of the pope, on his election to the 
pontificate. 

“We there read the following order of proceeding, 


Tur PRINcIPLE ok Source oF THEOLOGY. 237 


‘The pontiff elect is conducted to the sacrarium, and 
divested of his ordinary attire, and is clad in the papal 
robes.’ The color of these is then minutely described. 
Suffice it to say, that five different articles of dress, in 
which he is then arrayed, are scarlet. Another vest is 
specified, and this is covered with pearls. His mitre 
is then mentioned, and this is adorned with gold and 
precious stones. 

“Such, then, is the dress in which the pope is arrayed, 
as pope, and in which he first appears, as such. Refer 
now to the Apocalypse. We have seen that scarlet, 
pearls, gold, and precious stones are thrice specified by 
St. John as characterizing the mysterious power por- 
trayed by himself.” 

Behold the vesture of the Church of Rome in the per- 
son of her head! Who does not recognize the reality 
represented by the apocalyptic picture ? 

Fifthly. The woman is dreadfully characterized as 
“the mother of abominations.” The term abominations 
has especial, but not, I think, exclusive, reference to 
idolatrous practices in connection with the worship of 
God. The idolatrous doctrines, rites and images, to- 
gether with the moral iniquities, enforced, necessitated 
and actualized by the Church of Rome, entitle this 
vaunted “mother of churches” to the frightful designa- 
tion of the “mother of abominations.” 

Sixthly. ‘The woman is said to be “drunken with the 
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs 
of Jesus.” Of course, the applicability of this picture 
to the Church of Rome is vehemently denied by her own 
theologians. I shall not enter into a discussion with 


238 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIONS. 


them on this point. One feels that he would degrade his 
intelligence by descending into that arena. Powerful 
as the Church of Rome is, she cannot manufacture his- 
tory. She may if facts are against her ery, with the 
infallibilists of the Vatican Council, “so much the worse 
for the facts!” But the facts will not down at her bid- 
ding. Did Protestants not know when their fellow- 
Protestants were tortured and butchered by her? Was 
the story of the persecutions of the Albigenses and Wal- 
denses a mere myth? Was Cromwell’s message to the 
Duke of Savoy and the pope, warning them to desist 
from their resolution to attack the Vaudois Protestants, 
or England would have something to say about it, a 
conjured up fancy? Were the burnings of Cranmer and 
Bradford, Ridley and Latimer, Lambert and others inci- 
dents in a blood-curdling novel? Was the invasion of 
the Dutch by the Duke of Alva a got-up sensational 
romance of Mr. Motley? Was the dragooning of the 
French Huguenots an illusion? Was Mr. Quick dream- 
ing when he states that there were 200,000 Huguenot 
martyrs in the space of a decade, and furnishes the 
figures church by church? If so, was it also a dream 
that a people, by no means migratory, but wedded to 
their dear, native soil, fled by thousands from their 
“beautiful France,” to seek an asylum in foreign lands ? 
If that was a dream, what of their descendants, now 
around me as I write, bearing with them the ineffaceable 
traditions and the written records of papal persecution ? 
No. It is no legend, it is history, that millions of 
Protestants have fallen under the sword of Rome, or 


Tur Princrpte or Source oF THEotoey. 239 


have tasted the tender mercies of her “holy office” of 
the Inquisition more cruel than the grave. 

This is a false indictment, exclaims the Romanist; 
the church did not put heretics to death, she handed 
them over to the “secular arm” to be executed. The 
secular arm of what body? Was Bellarmin utterly mis- 
taken when he elaborately argued to prove that the state 
is subject to the church? If he was not mistaken, was 
the civil power not the obedient subject of the church in 
discharging the duty, laid upon it by ecclesiastical 
authority, of executing Protestant heretics? Either 
Rome must deny her own doctrine that the state is sub- 
ject to the church, or admit that the “secular arm” 
executed the mandates of the church. 

The “secular arm” was it? What meant, then, the 
personal presidency of Torquemada and Ximenes and 
other inquisitors over courts, which condemned heretics 
to a torture and a death which they witnessed with a 
serene composure, that sprung from the conscientious 
conviction (!) that they were doing God service? 

The “secular arm”? What, then, signified the pro- 
cessions of priests who followed the poor creatures to 
their martyrdom at the stake, and glutted their eyes 
with the spectacle of their dying agonies? 

It is a most amazing fact that the descendants of 
ancestors, who felt the merciless cruelty of Rome, now 
listen with innocent gullibility to the pacific and chari- 
table effusions of popish ecclesiastics. We are confi- 
dently assured by Protestants in high places that Rome 
is relaxing her rigor, that she is modifying her prin- 


- } 1G ‘ 
oF %y > ahs: 
% oe, : 

240 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


ciples and liberalizing her policy! Liberalize her poliey 
to extend her influence she may for a time; but that 
she will modify her principles — never! Should she so 
increase in numbers and civil power as to render charity 
no longer either necessary or desirable, she will contract 
her liberalizing policy within the narrow lines of her 
bloody principles. 

Which, then, shall be credited, her evanescent phrases, 
or her iron-clad tenets? Which shall be believed, the 
milk and water flattery of her orators, or the damning 
execrations of her catechisms ? 

Look you upon that picture, painted by the hand of 
the apocalyptic seer, of a woman arrayed in scarlet, 
sitting upon a scarlet colored beast, drunken with the 
blood of the saints, and holding out in her hand the eup 
of her sorceries to the enchanted and deluded nations ? 
It is the Church of Rome. “ 

5. The Church of Rome is the Babylon of the Apoca- 
lypse. Romanists labor to show that this characteriza- 
tion applies to pagan Rome, and not to papal Rome. 
Some argument has already been submitted going to 
show that the prophecies of Daniel, of Paul, and of John 
in Revelation cannot be interpreted of pagam Rome. 
Further argument will now be employed in the same 
general direction, but with special reference to the 
epithet Babylon; and I will attempt upon this question 
to do little more than briefly to present proofs furnished 
by others, especially the learned writer already cited 
upon other points, Dr. Wordsworth, formerly Canon of 
Westminster, whose discussion upon this point appears 
to me eminently cogent and convincing. And this is 





Tue Prrincipce or Source or THEotocy. 241 


done the more readily, in view of the fact that he was 
an Anglican High Churchman, who seemed desirous of 
avoiding the reproach of holding Puritan views. 

First. It has previously been shown that the woman 
so fearfully described in the Apocalypse is none other 
than the Church of Rome. But this woman is by John 
expressly called Babylon. After picturing the woman 
as sitting upon a scarlet colored beast, and arrayed in 
purple and scarlet color, etc., he says, “And upon her 
forehead was a name written, Mystery, BasyLon THE 
Great.” It is only necessary to put the two things 
together in order to deduce the consequence that the 
Church of Rome is Babylon. 

Secondly. Christian fathers who wrote before the 
destruction of the pagan Roman empire applied the 
prophetic designation Babylon to Rome, and to a Roman 
power which would succeed pagan Rome. 

“Trenzus interpreted the prophecies of St. John, con- 
cerning the woman on the seven hills, the woman which 
reigneth, the woman which is ‘Babylon, the mother of 
fornications,’ of no other city than Rome ; and, we might 
add, he did not apply them to pagan Rome, for he ex- 
pressly says that the antichristian power represented by 
that name was not yet come.” } 

“The most learned of the Christian fathers of the 
Latin Church of that age was Tertullian. He affirms 
that the Christians of his day pray for the duration of 
the Roman empire.? And why? Because its fall would 
be marked by the rise of an antichristian power. And 


*S. Iren., V. 30. * Tertull. Apol. c. 32. 
16 


242 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


in two places of his works he uses these words, “Names . 


are employed by us as signs. Thus, Samaria is a sign 
of idolatry, Egypt is a symbol of malediction, and, in 
like manner, in the writings of our own St. John, 
Babylon is a figure of the Roman city, mighty, proud 
of its sway, and fiercely persecuting the saints.’ ” 
Thirdly. “All the ancient eapositors agree in identi- 
fying these prophecies with some heretical church. And 
though the destruction of heathen Rome was a most 
striking event, yet not a single witness of any antiquity 
can be cited in favor of the exposition of Bossuet and 
his co-religionists, which sees a fulfilment of the predic- 
tions of the Apocalypse concerning the destruction of 
Babylon in the fall of heathen Rome.” “Pitmasius, 
Bede, Haymo, Aquinas and Ambrosius Ansbertus, who 
lived either before the corruptions of Rome became fla- 
grant, or wrote under her influence, generalize some of 
these predictions into denunciations against heresy ; but 
not one of them supposed them to have been fulfilled in 
heathen Rome.” “Indeed, that exposition is a very 
modern one; it is an afterthought; and has been devised 
by Bossuet and others to meet the other, which they call 
the Protestant interpretation. In a word, the identifi- 
cation of the apocalyptic Babylon with ancient heathen 
_ Rome is an invention of modern papal Rome.” 
Fourthly. Allow that the apocalyptic prophecies 
“were believed by some of the early Christians to be 
consummated in heathen Rome — which is not the case; 
then what follows? Some few Christians are instructed 
by them; and observe, instructed to do what? To 
avoid the idolatry of heathen Rome. Not to sacrifice 


el 


Tue PrrincipLe or Source or TuEeotocy. 243 


to Jupiter! Not to burn incense to the statue of the 
Roman emperor! What! Did they need a new pro- 
phecy from Patmos to teach them that? St. Peter and 
St. Paul had done this. All the apostolic martyrs had 
done this. The Apocalypse was not necessary to save 
them from apostasy [to paganism]. No; with rever- 
erence be it said, here was no worthy crisis for the inter- 
vention of the Holy Spirit of God. 

“But now change the hypothesis. Suppose Babylon 
to be, not a pagan city, but a corrupt church, such, alas! 
as Rome is. Then all is clear. Here is a new form of 
evil. Spiritual idolatry; an antichrist sitting in the 
church. And such an antichrist; one clothed as an 
angel of light. Teaching error disguised as truth. Hid- 
ing deadly corruptions under the fair forms of antiquity, 
sanctity, unity, and universality. A harlot claiming 
to be the bride. Babylon professing to be Sion. An 
antichrist pretending zeal for Christ, and gilding all his 
sins with the glorious name of Christ. Here is a strong 
delusion, one that may ensnare the world. Here is a 
fit occasion, an urgent exigency for the interference of 
the Holy Ghost. Here is a most profitable exercise of 
his divine office of prophecy, guidance, and warning to 
the church. Behold bere a fit mission for the Com- 
forter ! 

“And, if such a corrupt church as we have now de- 
scribed has at any time existed, and has continued to 
exist for many centuries, and does now exist in the 
world; yes, has so existed, and does still exist, at Rome: 
and if the apocalyptic Babylon is confessed on all hands 
to be the city of Rome, then we here see a conclusive 


2: 


- . ~ 
244 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 
. 


proof that the Babylon of the apocalypse is not only the 
Roman city, but the Roman Church.” 

Fourthly. The woman, called a Harlot and Babylon 
the Great, is represented as sitting upon — governing 
and supported by —a beast having ten horns bearing 
crowns, which are ten kingdoms. Now, when was this 
ever true of pagan Rome, the fall of which antedated 
the rise of the ten kingdoms? But it was true of the 
papal church. “The European kingdoms which arose at 
the dissolution of the Roman empire did surrender them- 
selves to the dominion of the Church of Rome. Italy, 
Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Hungary, France, Bel- 
gium, Spain, Portugal, and . . . England, for many 
centuries, were subject to the papacy.” We thus have 
another proof that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is the 
Church of Rome. 

Fifthly. We are astonished by the further prophecy 
that these ten kingdoms will at last destroy the power 
they had supported. Now what is that designated power 
which is to be destroyed by them? Let us hear the 
apocalyptist. “And the ten horns which thou sawest 
upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall 
make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and 
burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to 
fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto 
the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.” It 
is needful to keep in mind the distinction already signal- 
ized between the great ten-horned secular beast and the 
twohorned ecclesiastical beast. It is certain that the 
ten kingdoms did not destroy pagan Rome, for they 


1 We have seen that the harlot is the Church of Rome. 


> : 


Tue Princrete or Source or THEoLtocy. 245 


arose after it had been destroyed. It remains that they 
will destroy the only other Rome, namely, papal Rome. 

Sixthly. Hear again the words of the prophecy, 
“Babylon the Great is fallen, and is become the habita- 
tion of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the 
eage of every unclean and hateful bird.” The Roman- 
ists who contend that the Babylon of the Apocalypse was 
heathen Rome, must admit that papal Rome, on the very 
site of pagan, is “the habitation of devils, and the hold 
of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and 
hateful bird!” Will they face the consequence? If they 
do, they are self-condemned. If they do not, papal 
Rome is the Babylon yet to fall. 

“Nearly eighteen centuries,” eloquently says Dr. 
Wordsworth, “have now passed away, since the Holy 
Spirit declared, by the mouth of St. John to the church, 
that this mystery would be revealed in that city which 
was then the queen of the earth, the city on seven hills — 
the city of Rome. 

“The mystery was then dark as midnight. Man’s 
eye could not pierce the gloom. The fulfilment of the 
prophecy seemed improbable, almost impossible. Age 
after age rolled away. The mist which hung over it 
became less thick. The clouds began to break. Some 
features of the dark mystery began to appear, dimly at 
first, then more clearly, like mountains at daybreak. 
Then the form of the mystery became more and more 
distinct. The seven hills and the woman sitting upon 
them became more visible. Her voice was heard. 
Strange sounds of blasphemy were muttered by her. 
Then they became louder and louder. And the golden 





246 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


chalice in her hand, her scarlet attire, her pearls and 
jewels, glittered in the sun. Kings and nations were 
seen prostrate at her feet, and drinking her eup. Saints 
were slain by her power. And now the prophecy became 
clear, clear as noonday; and we tremble with awe at 
the sight, while the eye reads the inscription emblazoned 
in large letters, ‘Mystery, Basyton tue Great, writ- 
ten by the hand of St. John, guided by the Spirit of 
God, on the forehead of the Cuurcu or Rome.” 

II. The place of the Church of Rome in propheey 
having been determined, the way is open for considering 
the question of her destiny. This question will be 
treated under two heads: (1) The fact of her destruc- 
tion. (2) The time of its occurrence. 

1. The fact. Our appeal upon this subject must be 
to the prophecies of Scripture. We have seen ihat the 
Church of Rome is described in prophecy as the “little 
horn” of Daniel that sprang up from the great Roman 
beast, or the two-horned beast of Revelation; as the 
mystery of iniquity (or lawlessness) culminating in that 
wicked one; as the woman sitting upon a searlet-colored 
beast, arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked 
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden 
cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of 
her fornication; and as Babylon the Great. To prove, 
then, that the power thus characterized will be destroyed, 
is to prove that the Church of Rome will be destroyed. 
The proof will consist in a simple recital of the prophe- 
cies which assert the fact. 

The papal power described as a beast will be destroyed. 
Daniel says, “Then I would know the truth of the fourth 


Tur Principte or Sourcs or THEeoxtocy. 247 


beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding 
dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of 
brass ; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the 
residue with his feet; and of the ten horns that were in 
his head, and of the other which came up, and before 
whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a 
mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more 
stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn 
made war with the saints, and prevailed against them ; 
until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given 
to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that 
the saints possessed the kingdom. Thus he said, The 
fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, 
which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall 
devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and 
break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this king- 
dom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall 
rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, 
and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak 
great words against the Most High, and shall wear out 
the saints of the Most High, and think to change times 
and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a 
time and times and the dividing of time.” But the 
judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his domin- 
ion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” * 

John says, “And the fifth angel poured out his vial 
upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of 
darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain.” * 


1Conceded to be the Roman Empire. 
2That is, after the saints shall be given into his hand—1260 
years. 8 Dan. vii. 19-26. * Rey. xvi., x. 


248 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIONS. 


This is the first instalment of Rome’s destruction. The 
sixth angel pours out his vial upon the great river 
Euphrates, which, without dogmatizing, I suppose to 
symbolize Rome’s twin apostate power — Mohammedan- 
ism; and then the vial of the seventh (and last) angel 
completes the destruction of the papal power. 

Paul declares the destruction of the papal power, “For 
the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who 
now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. 
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord 
shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall 
destroy with the brightness of his coming.”? John 
utters the same prediction with reference to the woman 
upon whose forehead was written the name Mystery.” 

John says of the woman, the mother of harlots and 
abominations of the earth, “And the ten horns which 
thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, 
and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her 
flesh, and burn her with fire.” ® 

A graphic and awful description of the destruction 
of the Church of Rome as Babylon is given in the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth chapters of Revelation. It is like 
a sublime and passionate piece of music, which opens 
with the prelude, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,” 
moves on with the solemn notes of a most mournful 
dirge in which all the adherents and admirers of Rome 
blend their doleful lamentations, and closes with a choral 
burst of rapturous joy from apostles and prophets, 
martyrs and the whole church triumphant, the refrain 
of which is, “Alleluia; salvation, and glory, and honor, 


12 Thess. ii. 7, 8. ? Rev. xvii. * Rey. xvii. 16. 


Tur PRINCIPLE or SourcE oF THEoLocy. 249 


and power, unto the Lord our God: for true and right- 
eous are his judgments: for he hath judged the great 
whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, 
and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. 
Alleluia !” 

“And her smoke rose up forever and ever.” 

Having settled the point that the prophecies plainly 
predict the fact that the Church of Rome will be de 
stroyed, and destroyed in an awful manner, we are pre 
pared to consider the last aspect of the subject. 

2. The time of its destruction. 

(1) The question is a difficult one, and I desire to 
write in relation to it, not with peremptory dogmatism, 
but with humility and sobriety; but, at the same time, 
with such firmness of belief in the conclusions reached 
as is consistent with the confessed fallibility of human 
judgment. 

(2) I pause not to discuss the non-chronological 
hypothesis, which is that the times indicated in the 
prophecies are incalculable. The hypothesis is utterly 
untenable, because it strips the prophucies of all definite 
meaning and envelops them in a fog of vagueness and 
pointless uncertainty, and also because some of the times 
designated, when looked at from a chronological point of 
view, have, so far as they have borne upon the past, been 
marked by an extraordinary precision. We are justified 
in holding that the same will be true respecting the times 
of the present and the future. 

(3) This discussion is not directly concerned about 
the question whether there will be a millennium, a defi- 
nite future period marked off from previous periods by 


» Po 
, 
ve 
* 
2 
: 


250 . Discusstons or THEoLocicaL QuEsTIoNs. 


characteristic features, although I strenuously contend 
ihat there will be such a period; nor with the question 
whether the second advent of Christ will be pre-millen- 
nial or post-millennial, although I strongly lean to the 
belief that it will be post-millennial, and what I may 
say will receive its complexion from that belief. If, 
as some pre-millennialists hold, the prophecies declare 
that the second, visible, glorious coming of the Lord 
Jesus will take place before the introduction of the 
millennium, when he will raise and judge the righteous 
dead, one would be restrained from attempting to fix 
that time by the words which he himself spoke, “But of 
that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the 
angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the 
Father.” If it was not given to the Son to reveal it, it 
is not supposable that it was given to Daniel and John 
to reveal it. It is, I conceive, vain for the pre-millen- 
nialist to say that those words exclude ihe knowledge of 
the day or the hour, but not of the year. But disposed 
as I am to hold that the Christian dispensation is to be 
regarded as consisting of two periods, the one closing at 
the introduction of the millennium, the other beginning 
at that time and lasting to the end of the world, I can 
see no restrictive bearing of the Saviour’s words on an 
attempt to forecast the predicted termination of this 
present ante-millennial period, and the time when the 
papal power will be destroyed. Without positively 
asserting the view I maintain in regard to the matter, 
it seems to me the sense of Scripture that our Lord will 
come to close the present period, and bring on his millen- 
nial reign, but that that coming will not be his second 


44 


4s 


Tue Princiete or Source oF THEoLtoey. 251 


glorious advent. The prophecies of Daniel and John 
‘speak very definitely of the times to elapse until the end 
of this period. The 1260 days (years), the forty and 
two months, and the time, times, and the dividing of 
time, must designate particular sections of time; and a 
blessing is pronounced upon him who reads and under- 
stands the prophecies which emphasize them. 

4. The canonical authority of the Apocalypse is as- 
sumed; not only because that question has been settled 
by the church, but because it is evident that the Apostle 
John acknowledged his authorship of the book, for there 
is nothing to prove that it was issued after his death; 
and because its divine origin is conclusively shown by 
the fulfilment of some of its predictions — predictions, 
the accomplishment of which no uninspired mind could 
possibly have foreseen. 

5. Two things deserve especial notice in regard to the 
prophecies. The first is, that sometimes they predict the 
rise and development of the papal system up to the time 
when it claimed supremacy, and that they sometimes 
deseribe its progress subsequently to that point. The 
second is, that when the end of-the papal power is pre- 
dicted, it is not to be inferred that its full end comes all 
at once; the destruction will begin at a definite time, 
but there is “the time of the end” during which it will 
be carried on to completion, which complete destruction 
will also occur at a definite time. 

6. What is called the “year-day” theory is here ac- 
cepted — that is, that the day of prophecy is ordinarily 
to be understood as a year. Thus the emphatic period of 
1260 days is to be construed as a period of 1260 years. 


252 Discussions or Turonocicat Questions. 


This theory of computation has been so generally 
adopted since the Reformation that but few writers take 
the trouble to prove it. The following proof furnished 
by George Stanley Faber, in his able Dissertation on the 
Prophecies, appears to me conclusive, “That days mean 
years may, I think, be proved, so far as matters of this 
nature are capable of proof, from the writings even of 
Daniel and St. John themselves. We may venture to 
assume that the same mode of computation which is used 
by these writers in one passage will be used by them in 
all other passages, at least in all those which are marked 
by the common feature of treating, not of the fate of 
individuals, but of the fortune of communities. Hence, 
if any of their numerical prophecies be already accom- 
plished, we shall thereby have a clue for ascertaining the 
proper method of interpreting all the rest. Upon these 
principles, when we find that Daniel’s famous prophecy 
of the seventy weeks has been proved by the event of our 
Lord’s advent to speak of seventy weeks of years, or 490 
years, we may infer that his three years and a half mean 
years of years, and that his 2300, 1290, and 1335 days 
mean the same number of natural years. In a similar 
manner, finding equally from the event that the ten days’ 
persecution of the church of Smyrna mean the ten years’ 
persecution carried on by Diocletian, that the five 
months’ ravages of the Saracenic locusts mean 150 years, 
and that the year, the month, the day, and the hour of 
the Huphratean horsemen mean 391 years and 15 days; 
we may thence infer that St. John’s three years and a 
half are years of years; his 42 months, months of years ; 
and his 1260 days, and his three days and a half, the 


Tue PrRIncIPLE or Source oF THEOLOGY. 253 


same number of natural years. But we find that the 
three years and a half, the 42 months, and the 1260 days, 
are all plainly descriptive of one and the same period.” ? 

7. The next question is in regard to the duration of 
the papal power. Commentators are very generally 
agreed, and I see no reason to dissent from them, that 
it will continue for the period denominated variously as 
1260 days (years), forty-two months, and a time, times, 
and half a time. The forty-two months, prophetically 
computed, is 1260 years. The three times and a half 
are the same period; for reckoning a month as 30 days, 
the prophetical month is 30 years. Then, 30 x 42— 
1260. Computing a time as a prophetical period of 360 
years, then, 360+ 720+180—1260. Papal Rome, 
therefore, according to this view will last for 1260 years. 

8. The most difficult question to decide is, when did 
this period begin — what is its terminus a quo? If this 
could be determined, the time when the Church of Rome 
will be destroyed, or begin to be destroyed, would be a 
matter simply of arithmetical calculation. 

Concerning this question I desire to speak without 
dogmatic positiveness, and to use probable arguments. 
Yet probabilities may be so strong as to amount almost 
to certainty. 

I shall endeavor to show by probable arguments that 
the 1260 years of the career of papal Rome began in the 
early part of the seventh century of the Christian era. 

First. It would seem clear — and upon this point 
expositors are so generally agreed that argument is 
deemed useless — that the beginning of the 1260 years 


*Vol. I., p. 25. 


254 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


was when the saints of the Most High were given into 
the hand of the little horn that should arise from among 
the ten horns of the great secular Roman beast — that 
is, were given into the hand of papal Rome. “And they 
shall be given into his hand until a time and times and 
the dividing of time.” (Dan. vii. 25.) This is suffi- 
ciently plain. Papal Rome would persecute the saints 
for 1260 years from the time when its power to persecute 
would begin. From that time, the woman, the true 
church of Christ, fled into the wilderness, and from that 
time the witnesses commenced to prophesy in sackeloth. 

Secondly. This could not have happened before the 
beginning of the seventh century. The proof of this 
position may be safely rested upon a single, but most 
significant circumstance. Pope Gregory I., commonly 
called the Great, died in 604. But he, as we have seen, 
utterly repudiated the title of universal bishop. “I con- 
fidently affirm,” said he, “that whosoever calls himself 
universal bishop, or desires to be so called, in the pride 
of his heart, is the forerunner of Antichrist.” How 
could the bishop of Rome have had the power to perse- 
cute the saints of the Most High, if he were not universal 
bishop? And this also settles the question whether the 
beginning of papal supremacy is to be dated from the 


previous decree of Justinian conferring upon the bishop — 


of Rome the title of head of all the churches. If Greg- 
ory, who lived subsequently, did not acknowledge the 
title, of what earthly force was it? It had no practical 
influence. This ought to be enough, but events have 
decided the question. From 533 or 534, the date of 
Justinian’s decree, 1260 years would bring us to 1798 


Tue PrincreLeE or Source oF THEotoay. 255 


or 1794, when nothing oceurred to show that the papal 
power had received a death-blow. These considerations 
prove that the 1260 years of papal supremacy could not 
have begun before the commencement of the seventh 
century. 

Thirdly. The first argument that will be presented 
in favor of the beginning of the 1260 years of the papal 
career in the early part of the seventh century is derived 
from the parallel case of Mohammedanism. 

We know from history that Mohammed was born in 
the year 570; that he went into the cave of Hera to ex- 
cogitate his system in 606; that he began to teach his 
religious tenets privately from 608-610, and to broach 
them more publicly in 614; and that the Hegira or his 
withdrawal from Mecea to Medina occurred July 15th 
or 16th, 622, from which date the Mohammedan calen- 
dar begins, as the Christian does from the birth of 
Christ. 

The arguments of Mr. Faber appear to me convincing, 
that the little horn of the he-goat is neither Antiochus 
Epiphanes, nor the great Roman beast, and consequently 
not the papal little horn, but a religious power which 
sprang up from the ruins of one of the four kingdoms 
into which the empire of Alexander the Great was 
divided, and that power was Mohammedanism. No 
other exposition accords with the numbers of Daniel, or 
the facts of history. 

I concur with Mr. Faber, also, in taking the ram 
standing by the river to have been, not Rome, as some 
untenably hold, but the Medo-Persian empire, the lesser 
horn symbolizing the Median, and the greater the Per- 


256 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


sian power. Alexander was the he-goat, with a notable 
horn between his eyes, that came from the west on the 
face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground (so 
swift were his movements), and ran unto the ram in 
the fury of his power, smote him and brake his two 
horns. But when the he-goat waxed very great, and was 
strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up 
four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. Out 
of one of these came forth a little horn. Was not Mo- 
hammedanism little, like the papal horn, in its incip- 
iency? But the little horn waxed exceeding great, 
toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the 
pleasant land. All this was true of Mohammedanism. 
This was the power that is characterized by Daniel as 
the transgression of desolation (or the desolating trans- 
gression), which removed the daily sacrifice by reason 
of transgression — that is, in all probability, by reason 
of the defection of Christians from the true worship of 
God — and gave both the sanctuary and the host to be 
trodden under foot. This abomination of desolation 
could not, on chronological grounds, be possibly sup- 
posed to have been the Roman profanation of the temple 
at Jerusalem. The latter cannot be adjusted to the 
prophetic numbers touching the future. 

“The king,” says Mr. Faber, “or kingdom, symbolized 
by the little horn, was to stand up at the end of the four 
Greek kingdoms, and out of one of them. We may here 
note the different manner in which the two little horns 
are introduced. The papal horn was to arise among the 
ten horns of the Roman beast, and to be contemporary 
with them; the Mohammedan horn was to come up out 


Tur PRINCIPLE oR SourcE oF THEOLOGY. 257 


of the ruins of one of the four Greek horns of the Mace- 
donian beast, as they four had arisen out of the ruins of 
the one great imperial horn, and not to be contemporary 
with any of them, for it was to stand up at the end of 
their kingdom. Such, accordingly, was the event. When 
all the four Greek kingdoms had come to their end, the 
religion of Mohammed made its appearance, agreeably 
to the prediction, in the year 606, at the beginning of 
the 1260 years during which it was to flourish contem- 
poraneously with the papacy. Mecca was the first 
theatre of its actions: but in a very short period of time 
after its rise, it invaded Syria, and thus accomplished 
its prophetic character of being a little horn of one of 
the four subverted horns of the he-goat. 

“The first war between the Saracens and the Romans 
took place in the year 629 and 630; and between the 
years 632 and 639 the whole of Syria was conquered 
by them. (Hist. Decline and Fall, Vol. IX., pp. 312, 
379-421.) Dr. Zouch, in his work on Prophecy, objects 
that the little horn of the he-goat cannot be Mohammed 
(Mr. Whitaker, whom he is opposing, ought rather to 
have said Mohammedism, for a horn, in the language of 
symbols, does not mean an individual, but a power) be- 
cause that impostor sprung up in Arabia, which was 
never subject to the Syrian horn; whereas the little 
horn was to come out of one of the four notable ones of 
the he-goat. Hence he prefers the interpretation of Sir 
Isaac and Bishop Newton, and supposes with them that 
the little horn is the Roman power, which first pene- 
trated into the East by way of Macedon, one of the four 


horns or kingdoms of the Greek empire. When Dr. 
17 





258 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. ~ Pe 
Zouch madé this objection, he certainly was not aware. 
that it applies with equal force to his own system, we 
as to that which supposes Mohammedism to be 'therli 
horn. The Roman power sprung up no more wi 
the territories of any of the four Greek horns at its first 
rise than the religion of Mohammed. Consequer if 
the one must not be esteemed the little horn, because it 
originated in Arabia, neither must the other, because it 
first arose in Italy; and on the contrary, if the one 
may be esteemed the little horn because it became a 
power within the limits of the he-goat’s empire by the 
conquest of Macedon, so likewise may the other with 
equal propriety, because it became a power within the 
limits of the same empire by the conquest of Syria. The 
fact is, Dr. Zouch’s objection is one of those, which, by 
proving too much, prove nothing.” + Mr. Faber answers 
other objections with equal felicity. 

One or two other considerations may be added, which 
show that Mohammedanism is the little horn of the 
he-goat. In the first place, it is the only power in the 
East to which the prophecies are applicable. The elec- 
tion must lie betwixt secular Rome and Mohammedan- 
ism. But the secular Roman empire came to an end in 
the fifth century of the Christian era, whereas the power 
of the little horn of the he-goat is to continue until the 
time of the end, and the accomplishment of the wonders, 
which will be at the close of and following the period 
of 1260 years. In the second place, it would be to mix 
the symbols unwarrantably to suppose one and the same 
Roman power to be characterized as a great beast and a 


1 Dissert. on Proph., Vol. I., pp. 193, 194. 





%% Tue Prrvcrece or Source oF THEOLOGY. 259 


ess “~ little horn; and, in the third place, the prophecies which 


86 aecurately depict the Saracens and the Turks, and 
© deenate the periods of their respective ascendency, can 
ave no other application than to Mohammedanism. 
_ Mchammedanism is the great apostasy of the East, as 
popery is the great apostasy of the West. 
_ Now, if it can be shown that the rise of these two 
apostasies took place at the same time, that the origins 
»of the two were synchronous, as we know the date at 
which Mohammedanism begun, we will have ascertained 
that from which to caleulate the 1260 years of the papal 
_ecareer. I shall endeavor to show = they began to- 
gether in time. 

In the first place, the fifth angel is represented in the 
Apocalypse as pouring out his vial of incipient destruc- 
tion upon the seat (or throne) of the beast, and the sixth 
angel as pouring out his vial upon the great river Eu- 
phrates. Now nearly all expositors, except Romanists, 
agree that the fifth vial is poured out upon the Church 
of Rome. There is a difference of exposition in regard 
to the symbolical significance of the great river Euphra- 
tes. Some interpreters consider it to symbolize the 
resources of the Church of Rome, the modern Babylon, 
as the Euphrates was the great artery through which 
ancient Babylon obtained her supplies. The majority 
of interpreters, however, regard the Euphrates as sym- 
bolizing the Turkish empire through which the literal 
river runs — the empire which is the principal upholder 
of Mohammedanism. If the latter interpretation — 
which I cannot but consider the more probable — be the 
true one, the argument now submitted is little less than 


260 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


conclusive; for, if at the end of the 1260 years the 
incipient destruction of the papal power is spoken of 
in the prophecy before the incipient destruction of the 
Mohammedan power, it follows that popery, as supreme, 
could not have arisen after Mohammedanism. [If it had, 
why should the vial of destruction be represented as first 
poured out upon the system which had the later origin ? 

But we have seen that popery could not have origi- 
nated before Mohammedanism, for the latter had its 
rise in the early part of the seventh century and Gregory 
the Great, who lived until 604, indignantly rejected the 
ascription to him of papal power, and it was not until 
606 or 607 that Boniface III. received and accepted an 
imperial grant of supreme episcopal power. 

The inference seems clear that the origins of. the two 
systems were synchronous. 

In the second place, I cite the argument of Mr. 
Whitaker as quoted by Mr. Faber, “Daniel states the 
rise of Mohammed as to take place when the transgres- 
sors are come to the full. St. Paul says that the delusion 
of the man of sin shall be sent as a punishment, because 
men believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unright- 
eousness; where surely the same period (that in which 
the sins of the people call for judgment) is characterized 
for the rise of these two powers.” 

In the third place, each of these systems — Moham- 
medanism and popery — is prophesied to run a career 
of 1260 years. But it is prophesied of each that it will 
terminate at the same time — namely, the “time of the 
end,” and the finishing of all the wonders. Now, unless 
it be supposed that there is more than one time of the 


Tur PrRIncIPLE org Sourcr oF THErotoey. 261 


end, which is inadmissible, since Daniel says that at that 
time, the close of the 1260 years, “all these things shall 
be finished,” it follows from the fact that both Moham- 
medanism and popery shall end at the same time, that 
at the same time they begun. “Since,” remarks Mr. 
Faber, “the 1260 years of Mohammedanism, the 1260 
years of the papal horn, and the 1260 years of the re- 
vived Roman beast, all apparently terminate together at 
the time of the end, they must in that case all necessarily 
begin together.” ? 

As, therefore, Mohammedanism is known from his- 
tory to have begun in the early part of the seventh 
century, it follows that Romanism began its distinctive 
career at that time. 

The second argument to show that the 1260 years of 
papal ascendancy commenced in the early part of the 
seventh century is derived from the probability, little 
short of certainty, that the saints were given into the 
hand of the papal little horn at that time. We have seen 
that the 1260 years must have begun when that event 
took place. The question now is, When did that event 
occur? It has been conclusively evinced that it could 
not have taken place before the beginning of the seventh 
century. 

It has been urged that the Church of Rome did not 
begin her career of persecution as early as that period. 
To this it is replied, that by imperial edict the power to 
persecute was conferred at that time upon the pope. He 
had the saints in his “hand,” to do with them as he 
pleased. But, further, the power of the pope to control 


* Dissert. on Proph., Vol. I., p. 177. 


962 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


and even coerce other bishops was soon put into exercise. 
Boniface III., in whom the power of a universal bishop 
and supreme head of the church was vested by the decree 
of the Emperor Phocas, died in 607, and was succeeded 
by Boniface IV. That pope ir 610, in council with 
Italian bishops, issued decrees in accordance with which 
the hitherto independent See of Britain was to order 
some of its affairs. Gregory the Great had condemned 
image-worship, but this pope, soon after his accession to 
power, obtained from the emperor the famous Pantheon, 
and changed it into a church, substituting the mother of 
God for the mother of the gods, and the Christian mar- 
tyrs for the pagan deities adored there before; so that 
only the names of the idols were altered. This was the 
development of a few years only. How rapidly from 
that time the development of papal despotism proceeded 
let the records of history attest. 

True, the arbitrary power of the Church of Rome did 
not all at once leap into full exercise. But it soon 
manifested itself, more and more, in the absolute control 
of other churches, the corruption of worship by idola- 
trous elements, the repression of true worship by God’s 
sincere people, and the assertion of temporal authority, 
until at last the throne of the popes was incarnadined 
with the blood of the saints. The whole process had its 
origin in the investiture of the pope with universal 
power, and that took place in the early part of the sev- 
enth century. 

As the historical truth of this transaction has been 
disputed, the following argument upon the point by 


1 Bower’s Hist. of the Popes, Vol. I., p. 428. 


3). 


Tue PRINCIPLE oR Source oF THEOLOGY. 263 


Mr. Faber is submitted, “The account which Cardinal 
Baronius? gives of this grant is interesting, because 
it tallies so exactly with the prophecy. In the spirit of 
a true papist he maintains, that de jure the pope was 
always the universal bishop[!], and that Phocas did not 
so much confer upon him what he did not possess already 
as sanction by his imperial authority the undoubted 
right of the pope, thus constituting him universal bishop 
de facto as well as de jure. Now what is this but, in the 
language of the prophet, giving the saints into his hand ; 
that is to say, decreeing him by imperial authority to be 
a spiritual sovereign over all Christians, or (as they are 
constantly termed in the New Testament) saints? 
“Some, I believe, have doubted whether such a grant 
was ever made by Phocas, but, as it appears to me, with- 
out much reason. We know how severely the title of 
unwersal bishop was reprobated by Pope Gregory at the 
end of the sixth and at the beginning of the seventh 
century; we know, likewise, that the title was borne 
not long afterwards by the Roman pontiff, and that it 
was formally confirmed to him by the second council of 
Nice in the year 787. Hence we are certain that it 
cannot have been assumed very late in the seventh cen- 
tury, and would have ascribed it (as they did to Con- 
stantine the original grant of St. Peter’s patrimony) 
not to a murderous usurper, but to some emperor whose 
character stood high in the Christian world. On these 
grounds I give credit to the assertions of Paulus Dia- 
conus and Anastasius, neither of whom lived very long 
after the time when the grant is said to have been made; 


*+Annal. Hecles., A. D. 606. 


ee 
a 


264 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


and probably on the same grounds, ‘the most learned 
writers, and those who are most remarkable for their 
knowledge of antiquity,’ as it is observed by Mosheim, 
‘are generally agreed,’ that the title of universal bishop 
was formally conferred by Phocas upon Boniface. 

“The general agreement of various writers on this 
point, and the grounds which the Romanists take, are 
well stated by Dr. Brett from Bishop Carlton’s book of - 
jurisdiction, regal, episcopal and papal (Cap. VL., pp. 
82, 83). ‘Phocas,’ says he, ‘fixed Boniface, the third 
pope of that name, in that universal pastorship, which 
the Roman see claims and exercises over the other sees 
of Christendom at this day; and this, as Baronius and 
Estius, so these following historians assert: I will begin 
with Paulus. Now Baronius tells that it was assumed 
in the year 606, giving for his authorities Anastasius 
and Paulus Diaconus; the former of whom flourished 
in the ninth, and the latter in the eighth century; and 
I can see no reason why we should refuse to credit an 
assertion which places the assumption of the title about 
the very time when we must unavoidably suppose it to 
have been assumed. In short, if the account be nothing 
more than a forgery, it is one of the most unnecessary 
and one of the most ill-contrived forgeries that ever was 
executed; unnecessary, because the pope had been sol- 
emnly declared universal bishop by the second council 
of Nice in the year 787; ill-contrived, because the wily 
defenders of the papacy must have departed very far 
from their wonted subtlety to deduce falsely the grant 
in question from such an infamous monster as Phoeas. 
Had it never been made by any emperor, and had they 


Tuer Princretze or Source oF TuEontoey. 265 


been disposed to forge it for the purpose of aggrandizing 
the papacy, they would surely have pitched upon a more 
reputable patron than Phocas; Diaconus, who saith, 
Phocas statuit sedem ecclesie Romane ut caput et (?) 
omnium ecclesiarum. Abbas Usburgensis says the same, 
to-wit, that Phocas ordained that the see of the Roman 
apostolical church should be the head of all churches. 
Platina says that Boniface III. agrees with them 
herein, though he declares it in different words; Bons- 
facius obtinuit a Phoca, ut sedes beati apostoli, que est 
caput omnium ecclesiarum, ita diceretur et haberetur 
ab omnibus. Blondus saith, Phocas antistitem Ro- 
manum principem episcoporum omnium constituit. And 
Nauclerus saith, Phocas ad universum orbem, dimissa 
sanctione, constituit, ut Romane ecclesie, Romanoque 
Pontifici, omnes urbes ecclesia obedirent. And now our 
Romanists believe, as others have declared before them, 
that the Roman chair had this primacy by divine right, 
antecedent to Phocas’s decree, by which he only engaged 
to make it law in the empire.’ (Independent Power of 
the Church not Romish, pp. 268, 269, 270.) This 
opinion, which (as I have already observed) exactly 
accords with the prediction that the Roman beast should 
deliver the saints or Christians into the hand of his little 
horn, is thus stated by Estius the Schoolman, Nec aliud 
a Phoca imperatore impetravit Bonifacius tertius, quam 
ut cathedre Romane primatum, qui ei jure divino com- 
petebat, imperiali potestate tueretur contra presump- 
tionem EHpiscopi Constantinopolitani, qui se palam in 
suis literis Universalem Episcopum scribebat. (Com- 
ment. in Senten. 1. iv. §9; Tom. IV. Pars. Post. cited 


“Aa me 
va 


266 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


by Brett, p. 264.) Protestants have frequently urged 
to papist the disgraceful manner in which this grant was 
made; but they never, on that account, ventured to 
exchange their patron Phocas for one that would have 
done them more credit. Thus, when Illyricus main- 
tained against Bellarmine that Antichrist was born 
when Phocas, in the year 606, granted to the Roman 
pontiff that he should be called the head of the whole 
church; the Cardinal readily allowed the truth of the 
premises, but denied the validity of the conclusion. See 
Brightman cont. Bellarm. de Antichris., Cap. 3, Fol. 
39774 

The conclusion which seems justified by these argu- 
ments is that we must date the 1260 years of the domi- 
neering course of the papal beast, the Church of Rome, 
from the early part of the seventh century, and very 
probably from the year 606. Some writers have assigned 
the date of Phocas’s decree to 607; but the judgment of 
Roman Catholic historians and of others, especially of 
Flacius Illyricus, the indefatigable investigator of the 
sources of ecclesiastical history, which has just been 
cited, is in favor of the year 606. 

These appear to me to be the strongest arguments in 
favor of the beginning of the critically important period 
of the 1260 years of prophecy in the early part of the 
seventh century. 

There are one or two other considerations to which 
allusion will be briefly made, as seeming to lend some 
strength to these arguments. 

One is, that if we come up this side of the commence- 


1 Dissert. on the Prophecies, Vol. I., pp. 168-170. 


Tue PrincrPLe on Source oF THEOLOGY. 267 


ment of the seventh century, and with some expositors 
assume the dates of certain occurrences in the eighth cen- 
tury as the initial points of the 1260 years, events which 
have already occurred! appear to show the fallacy of 
these calculations. These dates are, 727, when the pope 
_and the Romans finally broke their connection with the 
Eastern emperor; 755, when the donation was made by 
Pepin to the pope of temporal authority, and the pope 
obtained the Exarchate of Ravenna; 774, when the 
pope received from Charlemagne, in addition to his 
temporal domain, the greatest part of the kingdom of 
Lombardy; and 787, when the worship of images was 
fully established, and the supremacy of the pope was 
formally acknowledged by the second Council of Nice. 
Starting with the earliest of these, we are carried to 
1987; with the last to 2047: 727+1260— 1987; 
787 +1260 = 2047. These final dates are yet in the 
distant future; but the papal power has already suffered 
a severe blow in the unification of Italy into one king- 
dom, and the consequent demolition of the temporal 
sovereignty of the pope, and also in the decrease of his — 
temporal supremacy; while it is undeniable that the 
Turkish empire, the principal supporter of Mohamme- 
danism, is more and more decaying. It would seem as 
if the fifth and sixth vials of Revelation are now dis- 
charging their fatal contents. 

Another consideration is, that the calculations of the 
prophetical times by most recent expositors, who have 
had the events of the nineteenth century before them, 
point together to the consummation of the period covered 


1This is written in 1893. 


268 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


by the 1260 years in the latter part of the present cen- 
tury. Pre-millennialists and post-millennialists concur 
in this. There is something very striking in this con- 
currence. Those who have based their calculations upon 
the long period of Daniel’s prophecy, and those who — 
as in the argument of this discussion — have founded 
theirs upon the shorter period of 1260 years, are curi- 
ously agreed, to a great extent, in the conclusions they 
have reached. 

Let us now test the accuracy, or at least the probable 
accuracy, of this interpretation of the prophecies con- 
cerning the time of the papal church’s destruction, by 
assuming the year 606 as the initial date of the 1260 
years, and inquiring whether the year 1866, which would 
have concluded that period calculated from 606, in- 
cluded any events bearing significantly upon the Church 
of Rome. 

For some time previously to that year, the great states- 
man, Count di Cavour, and Victor Emmanuel [!], king 
of Sardinia, had endeavored to secure the unification of 
all the Italian States into one kingdom. To this project 
the pope, of course, was desperately opposed, as its suc- 
cess would inevitably bring about his loss of the Papal 
States, and consequently his temporal sovereignty, and 
inflict other baneful results upon the papacy. In the 
accomplishment of this scheme Cavour and Victor Em- 
manuel were completely baffled by Austria, which sup- 
ported the cause of the pope, and defeated the Sardinians 
in two decisive battles. Their hopes seemed to be extin- 
guished; but in July, 1866, at the battle of Kénigratz 
or Sadowa, Prussia so thoroughly crushed the power and 


Tur PriIncreLE or Sourcr oF THEoLoay. 269 


crippled the resources of Austria that she was no longer 
able to lend any assistance to the pope against his adver- 
saries. The consequence was, as every one knows, that 
the Sardinian project was again pushed, and in 1870, 
Victor Emmanuel entered Rome a conqueror, and made 
it the capital of the kingdom of United Italy. In the 
same year — and it was the year in which the Vatican 
Council crowned the iniquities of Rome by declaring the 
pope infallible — the battle of Sedan put it out of the 
power of France again to carry the woman clothed in 
scarlet. It was, then, in 1866 that the cause was set in 
operation, which issued in the most serious disaster that 
had ever befallen the papal power. The temporal sov- 
ereignty of the pope was ruined, and, in 1882, the last 
vestige of it was obliterated by the decree of an Italian 
eivil court, which authorized the Roman police to enter 
and inspect the premises of the Vatican. It looks as 
if the theory, that the 1260 years of papal supremacy 
began in 606, had received confirmation from the critical 
events which signalized and followed the year 1866. 
“Between 1854 and 1874, when the borrowing power 
of Turkey came to an end, fourteen several loans had 
been contracted to meet deficiencies. At the end of that 
period the foreign debt of Turkey amounted to 
£184,981,783. . . . Further to stave off the evil day, 
the government has issued vast quantities of caimes or 
paper money, probably to the nominal value of ninety 
million pounds sterling.”1 In 1866, the Oretans re 
volted, and it cost the Porte a long struggle and heavy 
expense to suppress the insurrection. In 1867 it was 


*Chambers’s Encyc., Art. Turkey. 


* - 4% 
aN : ¥ 


~ 


270 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


compelled to concede to Servia the removal of the Turk- 
ish garrisons from her fortresses. And since, Turkey 
has been engaged in wars which have increased the debts 
which had before rendered her bankrupt. To-day she 
is subsisting on loans. The crash cannot be far off. The 
day is not distant when the European powers will be 
squabbling over her bones. The drying up of the Eu- 
phrates (if that symbol is correctly interpreted) has been 
going on for some time past. The financial resources 
of the Ottoman empire appear to have taken their chief 
downward plunge in the decade which included the year 
1866. It is not improbable, therefore, that the 1260 
years of Mohammedan power expired at that time. The 
ease of Mohammedanism has been adverted to, in con- ~ 
sequence of the ground having been taken in these 
remarks that, as popery and Mohammedanism probably 
began their careers together, they would probably end 
them together. 

Tt has been already observed that the close of the 1260 
years would introduce a consuming process of destruc- 
tion 1o which popery and Mohammedanism would be 
subjected. Now Daniel, in the closing chapter of his 
prophecy, speaks of two apparently supplementary pe 
riods, one of 30 years and another of 45 years. He 
speaks of 1290 years, and says also, “Blessed is he that 
waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and 
five and thirty days” — 1335 years. If the opinion be 
correct that the 1260 years expired in 1866, thirty years 
afterward, 1896, some remarkable event or events may 
be expected to occur, and from that time for forty-five 
years an unexampled time of trouble will be experienced, 


a 
’ 


Tuer PrIncIPLE og Source oF THEotocy. 271 


during which those dreadful struggles will take place 
that will precede the end of this period, and the intro- 
duction of the millennium. Somewhere in the seventy- 
five supplementary years popery and Mohammedanism 
will be completely destroyed,! the final Antichrist will 
be manifested, and the Jews and Israelites will be re- 
stored to their own land; and at their close the battle 
of Armageddon, the battle of that great day of God 
Almighty, will be fought, the beast and the false prophet 
cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and the glorious 
period ushered in, when Satan will be bound, universal 
peace will bless the world, the Spirit will be poured out 
on all flesh, and Jusus will reign from sea to sea, and 
from pole to pole. O blessed, golden age, how will the 
beams of thy rising Sun gladden the earth, so long ruled 
over by the devil, drenched in the blood of God’s saints, 
and sunk in the guilt and filth of open idolatry. 


*This will take place before the destruction of the final anti- 
Christian, infidel beast and the false prophet, which will be 
effected near the close of the seventy-five years. 


[1 Dr. Girardeau had lived he would probably have rewritten 
the latter part of this article. The period in which Mohamme- 
danism had its rise was from 606, the time Mohammed entered 
the cave, to 642, by which time Palestine, Egypt and Persia had 
been conquerer. The period in which the papacy proper had its 
rise was from 606, when the decree of Phocas made the bishop of 
Rome universal pontiff, to 649, when Martin exercised his high 
prerogative by condemning the imperial decrees and anathematiz- 
ing the Monothelites, with the consent of a Lateran synod. It 
does not seem necessary to begin the 1260 years of Mohamme- 
danism, and the 1260 years of the papacy from the same year. 


272 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Each might be dated from any important event in the period of its 
rise. 

The time of the end need not be a particular year. Daniel 
makes it a period of seventy-five years. His last chapter appears 
to relate chiefly to Judaism and Mohammedanism; if so, the 1260 
years of this power will, of course, end at the beginning of the ~ 
seventy-five years, while the papal period will end somewhere in 
the seventy-five years.—EDITOR. ] 


PROTESTANTISM. 


Tue INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


N the progress of these discussions we come now to 
the position of the Orthodox or Hvangelical Pro- 
testant. 

It affirms what each of the schools which have 
been already considered denies. In opposition to the 
pantheist, and the intuitionalist of the type of Schleier- 
macher and Morell, it affirms of a supernatural revela- 
tion its possibility. In opposition to the deist, it affirms 
its necessity. In opposition to the professedly Christian 
rationalist, it affirms its supreme authority; and in 
opposition to the mystic and the Romanist, it affirms its 
completeness. It maintains that a supernatural revela- 
tion of religious truth, especially as saving, was possible 
and necessary; and that, its actual communication 
being admitted, it is supremely authoritative and com- 
plete. 

The supernatural revelation which the Protestant 
position affirms is the Bible, and the Bible alone — that 
is, the Scriptures as embraced in what are known as the 
Old and New Testaments. The Bible, the Bible alone, 
it contends, is the source and rule of a true theology — it 
is the principwm theologie. 

The question of the divine origin, the authoritative 


ness and the canonicity of any writings hinges upon the 
18 


~ 


a‘. 


274 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


question of their inspiration. Any writing that is 
inspired by God is of divine origin, is of infallible 
authority, and is, ipso facto, entitled to be ranked as an 
integral element of supernatural revelation. On the 
contrary, any writing which is not inspired by God is 
of human origin, is of fallible authority, and must be 
denied a place in the canon of Scripture as the super- 
natural revelation of God’s will to man. 

It is, therefore, the question of the inspiration of the 
Bible that will now be discussed. After some prelimi- 
nary remarks upon the reasons for the consideration of 
the question, the subject will be considered under the 
heads of the Nature of Inspiration; its Relations, and 
its Extent. The Proofs of the Inspiration generally 
considered, or the divine origin of the Scriptures will be 
reserved for another place. 

Let us look briefly at some of the reasons for the con- 
sideration of the question. 

In the first place, we have seen, in the examination 
of the deistical position, that a supernatural revelation 
is necessary to the religious interests of mankind. It is 
necessary to republish, correct and reénforee the doc- 
trines of natural religion, obscured and marred as they 
have been by sin, and it is chiefly necessary to create 
and publish the facts and truths of redemption, without 
which there could be no deliverance from the disastrous 
effects of the fall, but which the uninspired reason of 
man could not possibly have conceived or suggested. 
“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can 
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 


Tur PRINCIPLE on Source oF THEotocy. 275 


The conceded necessity of a supernatural revelation, and 
the incompetency of the natural reason in the premises, 
afford a presumption that God would furnish such a 
communication of his will to man. This presumption is 
sustained by the claim of the Scriptures to be just such 
a revelation. This raises the question of their divine 
authorship; and this is all one with the question of their 
supernatural inspiration. If inspired by God, they are 
originated by him, and are attended with his authority. 
If not, they rise no higher than human productions, and 
cannot be trustworthy in relation to the supreme ques- 
tions of religion and the future destiny of men. The 
question of the inspiration of the Bible, is, therefore, 
one which must be considered, and it is one which is of 
transcendent importance. 

In the second place, the Bible asserts its own imspira- 
tion. In this respect, it places itself in the attitude of a 
witness at the bar of human reason. This testimony, 
like that furnished by any respectable witness in regard 
to matters of importance, challenges attention and de- 
serves examination. It is entirely unscientific to treat 
it with contempt. It is as much a fact asthe phenomenal 
testimony of the heavens and of the earth, while the 
inferences which are deducible from it are of immeasur- 
ably greater consequence than those which are derivable 
from the facts of physical nature. The Bible professes 
to deal authoritatively with all the questions of religion 
and morality, it professes, indeed, to be the universe of 
religious and moral truth, and no scientific inquirer can 
pass by its stupendous pretensions, as the mere offspring 
of fanaticism and the fruit of delusion, without breaking 


4 
+ 


276 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


with the spirit and method of science itself. The ques- 
tion of its inspiration, therefore, has received, and will 
continue to receive, the profound attention of serious 
thinkers in every age. 
In the third place, it has been the uniform testimony 
of the church universal that the Bible is inspired of God. 
This undeniable fact demands scrutiny. This has been 
the position of both Jews and Christians. Granted that 
this fact does not afford irrefragable proof of the inspira- 
tion of the Scriptures, it merits consideration. It would 
ill comport with the candor and modesty of philosophy 
and science to treat this mass of testimony with scorn, 
to look upon this innumerable host of witnesses as 
having been misguided enthusiasts, the victims of im- 
posture and fraud. It were a superfluous task to show 
that the divine inspiration of the Bible has been the 
faith of scholars, philosophers and scientifie men, and 
not alone of a countless multitude who have adorned the 
ordinary walks of life with every noble virtue, and 
illuminated the gloom of death by the splendor of a 
triumphant exultation. This history is greater than 
that of any secular empire that has ever flourished on the 
globe, and the questions it has developed have given rise 
to a vaster body of literature than any other single 
subject which has occupied the energies of the human 
mind. Regarded from this point of view also, the ques- 
tion of inspiration is forced upon our consideration. 
In the fourth place, the attempts made at the present 
day to represent the Bible as of coérdinate value with 
the sacred books of other schemes of religion than that 
of Christianity, necessitate an appeal to its inspiration 


. 
© 


Tur Prrncrete or Source or THEotocy. 277 


as proving its supremacy. It is not supposable that 
God has given to mankind several revelations touching 
their religious duties and interests — revelations which 
not only differ as to their contents, but are in conflict 
with each other. On the supposition, then, that he has 
communicated but one revelation of his will, it is of the 
last importance to settle this competition, and to decide 
the question, which of the claimants is of divine origin 
and authority. This result can only be reached upon 
the examination of the evidences each may be able to 
present of its having been divinely inspired. 

Tn the fifth place, assaults upon the inspiration of the 
Scriptures are not, at the present day, confined to 
avowed infidelity. The greatest number of these attacks 
emanate from professedly Christian scholars. This is 
at least true of the claim of the Scriptures to be plenarily 
inspired. The anti-supernatural school of Graf, Well- 
hausen and Kuenen has its representatives in theological 
institutions under the care of the orthodox churches of 
Britain and America. The question of inspiration 
which had been supposed by the people of God to be 
settled, so far as the church is concerned, is now reopened 
by nominally Christian men within the church itself. 
Tt makes no real difference that Schleiermacher and 
Morell, that Cheyne and Driver, Robertson Smith and 
Briggs admit the fact of what they call inspiration. It 
is not the inspiration for which the church of God has 
always contended. It is either an elevation of the 
spiritual nature which cannot be discriminated from 
the illumination and sanctification possessed in some 
degree by all saints, or an afflatus which is akin to what 


278 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


we term the inspiration of genius. This is to use the 
term and to deny the reality. The contest is not only as 
it always has been for altars and firesides; it is one 
which is originated at our altars and firesides, and 
waged by those with whom we take sweet counsel and 
walk to the house of God in company. Although these 


writers wear the garb of Christian teachers, and affect 


to talk in the dialect of Zion, when they speak of inspira- 
tion they are careful to tell us that they do not, by that 
term, mean an influence which has secured, what God’s 
people believe, the infallibility and “inerraney” of the 
sacred records. On the contrary, it consisted with lia- 
bility to err in the persons inspired, and actual errors 
in their writings. 

Such being the doctrine which is maintained in the 
high places of the church, and embellished by the charms 
of a scholarship assuming to be nice and critical, the 
defenders of the traditional view are summoned to look 
afresh to their arms. Especially is the doctrine of verbal 
inspiration bitterly and contemptuously denounced. 
One often meets the declaration that it is well-nigh 
universally abandoned. None hold it but the unscholarly 
rabble. The zlluminati look down upon it as one un- 
worthy of their notice. It can make no difference to 
them that the Scriptures affirm the doctrine, for, accord- 
ing to them, the Scriptures are fallible, and it is left to 
the superior scholarship of modern times to determine 
the points at which they may be inerrant, and those at 
which they have fallen into error. It is really a question 
between the Bible of scholarship and the Bible of inspi- 
ration. 


Tur PrrncieLe or Sourcr or ToEoLoey. 279 


There is, then, abundant reason for considering the 
question of inspiration. It is infinitely important, and 
it is as inevitable as it is important. 

I. The first aspect of inspiration that will be noticed 
is its nature — what is it ? 

The inquiry, at the outset, arises, What is the source 
from which we derive information upon this subject? 
I adopt the answer of Dr. Charles Hodge to this ques- 
tion, “The nature of inspiration is to be learnt from the 
Scriptures; from their didactic statements, and from 
their phenomena.” ! In preceding discussions touching 
the nature of theology, a distinction was conceded be- 
tween natural and supernatural revelation. The former 
consists of the lessons imparted by the constitution of 
man and the material universe to which he is related. It 
grounded, in the first instance, man’s knowledge of 
himself, and of God as the infinite, extra-mundane, 
personal Oreator and providential ruler of all things. 
This knowledge still exists to some extent among all 
men — at least, it ought to exist — and no human being 
is excusable who does not possess it. But the teachings 
of this natural revelation are clouded and negatived by 
sin. The Scriptures profess to be a supernatural reve- 
lation, in which the old truths of the first revelation are 
clearly restated, and, in addition, the altogether new 
and original elements of a redemptive scheme are com- 
municated. To us, then, the question of the authorita- 
tiveness of revelation is precisely the question of the 
authoritativeness of the Scriptures. There is, it is ob- 
vious, no pre-intimation in the old revelation of the 


1 Syst. Theol., I., 153. 


280 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


existence of the new, and no guarantee of its trust- 
worthiness which can be collected from the present con- 
stitution of man, and the present order of nature. They 
are absolutely silent in regard to a supernatural revela- 
tion of God to the human race. From the nature of the 
case, we are dependent upon the testimony of the Serip- 
tures touching the nature of their own inspiration. 

Prophets and apostles claimed to be commissioned of 
God to declare his will, or, what is the same thing, to be 
inspired. This claim was not arbitrarily and gratui- 
tously made. It was not addressed to an implicit faith. 
It was sustained by extraordinary credentials. The 
prophet or apostle proved his inspiration by miracles, 
or was vouched for as inspired by one who did work 
miracles. The inspired messages were recorded. These 
records are the Scriptures. 

Here the appeal is to the divine credibility of the 
Scriptures as an inspired witness. The proofs of their 
credibility are such that if they cannot be deemed worthy 
of credence, neither can any human writings. The voice 
of the past would be silent as the grave, and no testimony 
could be relied on but that which is contemporary with 
ourselves. The Scriptures report the fact of the miracles 
as proofs of the inspiration of prophets and apostles. 
The Jewish and the Christian church accepted these 
proofs of inspiration. It is certain that we would not 
now admit the claim of one to be inspired, unless backed 
by miraculous credentials. Were they more easily 
duped than we in matters of supreme importance? Do 
we enjoy a monopoly of common sense? Was wisdom 
born with us? It is a significant fact that the actuality 


Tur PRINCIPLE OR SOURCE OF Turotoey. 281 


of the reputed miracles wrought by Christ and his 
apostles was not impugned by the early assailants of 
Christianity. It was only when the distance of cen- 
turies from the reported facts had been crossed, that 
Hume denied the credibility and pantheists the possi- 
bility of miracles. This question will be considered 
further on in the discussion. 

But however atheists and pantheists, agnostics and 
infidels of all sorts may reject the testimony of the Bible 
to inspiration, the whole nominal church accepts it, and 
the Christian theologian relies upon it for information 
in regard to its nature. With the Scriptures, therefore, 
as our guide, let us inquire what inspiration is. 

1. Generically considered, it is an influence affecting 
the human mind. Concerning this there is not apt to be 
any dispute. What is necessary is to determine the 
specific qualities going to constitute that connotation of 
marks which differentiates this influence from all others. 
Specifically considered — 

9. It is an influence exerted by the Holy Ghost. “For 
the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: 
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost.”1 “The former treatise have I made, 
O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and 
teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that 
he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments 
unto the apostles whom he had chosen.” ? “Men and 
brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, 
which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake 


12 Peter II., 21. 2 Acts i. 1, 2. 


% 


282 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


before concerning Judas.”1 “And they were all filled 
with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other 
tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”* “Well 
spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our 
fathers.” “And Jesus answered and said, . . . 

For David himself said by the Holy Ghost.”* “Of 
which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched 
diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come 
unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the 
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when 

it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the 
glory that should follow.” ® ; 

One of these passages asserts, negatively, that the 
inspiring influence is not from the will of man, and all, 
positively, that it proceeds from the Holy Ghost. 

3. It is an influence either strictly revealing unknown 
truth to the mind, or presenting to it known truth. In 
the former case what is not actually cognized, or not 
cognizable, by the human faculties is made known; in 
the latter known truth is so presented or suggested as to 
limit attention to it and designate it as that intended to 
be delivered by the inspired person. In either case, 
there is revelation; in the one strictly and properly, in 
the other more loosely contemplated. The truth concern- 
ing the person of Christ was strictly revealed; that 
concerning the discourses of Jesus which his disciples 
had heard was revealed, in the sense of being selected, 
presented, pointed out, by the Spirit to be reported. In 
the latter case, so much of what Jesus had said was 


1 Acts i. 16. ? Acts li. 4. 8 Acts xxviii. 25. 
“Mark xii. 35, 36. 5] Peter i. 10, 11. 


Tur PrincreLte or Source or THEotoay. 283 


called to remembrance, or impressed upon the mind, as 
God willed to be communicated either orally or in 
writing. So with all the ordinary facts coming within 
the cognizance of the human faculties. 

4, It is an immediate influence — that is, one not 
exerted through any medium. It directly brings the 
truth designed to be delivered into contact with the 
mind. In this respect, it is analogous to the act of 
regeneration, strictly considered as not synonymous with 
conversion; and not to the ordinary operation of the 
Spirit in sanctification which is conducted through the 
truth and the other means of grace. As in regeneration, 
the Spirit communicates life not through means, so in 
inspiration he without the intervention of means com- 
municates knowledge. 

5. It is a supernatural influence. It is one over and 
beyond the reach of the human faculties in either their 
natural or converted state; something to which they 
cannot of themselves attain, and which they cannot of 
themselves experience, however extraordinary may be 
the conditions upon which they act, and the circum- 
stances by which they may be environed and impressed. 
It is as sovereign as the influence by which physical life 
was, in the first instance, engendered, or the soul of the 
sinner is spiritually quickened. 

6. It is an objective influence. It comes from without 
the mind, and communicates to it an external and 
authoritative revelation of God’s will. The term 
objective, it will be noticed, is here not used as formally 
signifying that which may be an object of contemplation 
by the mind, whether it be foreign to the mind or a 


284 Discussions or THroLoeicaL QuEsTIONs. 


modification of the mind itself, but as designating that 
which is not internal to the mind, but external to it. 
The inspiring influence is exerted, it is true, wpon the 
mind, and in this sense it may be said to be subjective — 
it is the mind which is its recipient. But it originates 
without the mind, and communicates truth to it. While 
subjective and internal as to the mind receiving the 
communication, it is objective and external as to its own 
nature, and as to the truth communicated to the mind. 
It is not merely an influence which stirs up the human 
faculties to unwonted and extraordinary energy. It is 
not simply an elevation of the intelligence to a degree in 
which it perceives truth, which in a lower degree it did 
not apprehend through lack of such stimulus; but it is 
the actual impartation of the truth to be perceived. In 
the case of revelation proper, it creates the truth and 
places it in relation to the mind; in the case of known 
things, it presents out of a multitude of possible things 
those particular things which are intended to be com- 
municated to others. 

This is the view which has been maintained by the 
church, one which is entirely different from that which 
is advocated by the school of Schleiermacher and by the 
higher critics of the present day. They make the in- 
spiring influence, under the operation of the Spirit, to 
evolve from within the human faculties by virtue of 
their activity, as the heat of a wheel is produced by its 
rapid rotation. If this theory were true, the inspiring 
influence ought to have continued in the church from 
the first pious man until this time. It would have been 
a regularly operating force exposed only to the fluctua- 


, 
* 
a 


Ture PRINCIPLE oR SouRcE oF THEOLOGY. 285 


tions to which piety is subject. On the other hand, the 
church holds that inspiration was a gift bestowed in 
sovereignty, at such time and in such way as God deter- 
mined, and that it has ceased for more than eighteen 
centuries. 

Nor will it do to say that the piety of the church has 
not been equally elevated at all times. Granted, but 
when it has been heightened to an unusual degree, in 
the progress of the church since the apostles fell asleep— 
and who will deny that it sometimes has? — did the 
inspiring influence reappear in those seasons of revival ? 
If so, where are its products? Has the canon of Scrip- 
ture been increased since John wrote the Apocalypse ? 
These writers confound inspiration with sanctification. 
Is it not manifest that the extraordinary and occasional 
feature of inspiration lifts it into a peculiar category 
transcending the afflatus by which the Spirit moves and 
stimulates the people of God ? 

Inspiration, then, is not subjective and internal, but 
objective and external. It does not cause the mind to 
attain truth by its own excited action, but, like an oracle, 
delivers truth to it. It is a messenger uttering God’s 
sayings, a witness delivering God’s testimony. It moves 
the mind, indeed, but only to receive that testimony. 
And receiving it, the inspired person is ipso facto com- 
missioned from heaven to communicate it to others. 

4%. It is an influence exerted upon the intellect for the 
purpose of producing teachers. It is not intended to 
produce saints. Balaam and Caiaphas were subjects of 
this influence when they uttered their remarkable 
prophecies. These instances show that inspiration ter- 


286 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


minated upon the intellect specifically, and not upon the 
general character; that one might be an inspired man 
without being a good man. Inspired men were generally 
good men, the inspired writers were all good men, but 
goodness in the recipient of the inspiring influence was 
an accidental quality, not one essential to the exertion of 
that influence. When controlled by it, even wicked men 
taught the truth. It is thus distinguishable from that 
saving illumination of the Holy Spirit, which, to a 
greater or less extent, is imparted to every pious man. 

8. It is an influence which secures infallible teaching. 
The inspired person, so far as he was inspired, could not 
err. The matter communicated by inspiration was abso- 
lutely inerrant. The man might err, but not the man 
as inspired. This must be conceded, or the ground is 
taken that the inspiring Spirit may teach falsehood. 
Moses when he twice smote the rock at Kadesh and spoke 
impetuously to the people, Peter when he dissembled at 
Antioch and practically taught untruth, and Paul when 
he quarreled with Barnabas, spoke and acted not as 
inspired men, but as imperfectly sanctified men, at the 
time uncontrolled by the inspiring influence. They 
certainly were not moved by the Spirit to do or to speak 
what was wrong. When they were moved by his inspir- 
ing influence, they could not, to the extent of that 
influence, either do or say anything wrong. 

This canon, however, that inspiration secures infal- 
lible teaching, let it be observed, does not imply that all 
the words spoken or written by persons under the inspir- 
ing influence were intrinsically true words. In the 
main, that was so. Inspired men generally spoke or 





Tur PRINCIPLE oR Source or THEOLoGy. 287 


wrote words which accurately conveyed truth dictated by 
God himself, truth founded in the divine nature and 
designed to be profitable to the spiritual interests of men, 
truth, not merely as a correct report of facts, but in itself 
materially and formally expressing the divine character. 
But sometimes inspired men spoke or wrote words which 
were falsely or wickedly uttered by the devil or bad men. 
In these cases the inspiring influence induced an infal- 
_ libly true report of the facts, although the facts them- 
selves were lies; just as one may now truly report a lie 
spoken by another. The question with us is in regard 
to the infallible teaching of the scriptural record. We 
know inspiration as a concrete reality only in that 
record. Now the Scriptures, for the most part, are a 
record of God’s own truth, springing from his nature, 
but, in some instances, they record the wicked acts and 
false words of Satan and impious men. In these cases, 
the record is exactly true and holy, the things recorded 
false and wicked. The clerk of a court may accurately 
record the testimony of witnesses. Some of that testi- 
mony may be false. In that case, we rightly say that 
the record is true, the recorded testimony false. So with 
the inspired Scriptures. Their record of facts is in- 
fallibly true; some of the things recorded were false. 
The fallibility and errancy of the things recorded in 
no degree affects the infallibility and inerrancy of the 
sacred record. In a word, the Bible is inerrant history. 

This canon, furthermore, that inspiration secures in- 
fallible teaching, signalizes the distinction between 
inspired men and the stated teachers of the church. The 
former, when acting under the inspiring influence, 


288 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


taught infallibly; the latter are fallible teachers. When 
the preachers of the gospel teach exactly what the Serip- 
tures teach they teach infallibly. But they may teach 
what is contrary to the Scriptures, and then they teach 
falsely. If a preacher should declare that he who be- 
lieves in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, he would 
teach infallibly, for he would utter precisely what the 
Scriptures affirm. The matter of his teaching would 
be inspired matter. But should he in the next sentence 
say, that believing in Christ depends upon the human 
will, he would teach what is contrary to the Scriptures, 
and therefore false. What is the distinction? It is that 
between inspired and uninspired persons. The persons 
of the prophets and apostles were inspired; no person is 
now inspired. The inspiration abides in the Scriptures. 
He who delivers now what they contain teaches inspired 
truth; but he himself is not inspired. They teach 
infallibly; he is liable to teach fallibly. The inspired 
person, the uninspired person; the infallible Scriptures, 
the fallible teacher of the Scriptures —these are the 
distinctions that need to be emphasized. 

9. It is an influence which secures the teaching of 
God’s will in regard to the spiritual interests of men. 
All natural things communicated have a subordinate 
relation to this great end. It is not intended to teach 
science, or philosophy, or polities, as such. It may, to 
some extent do that incidentally, but that is not its 
supreme design. 

10. It is an influence, the didactic inerrancy of which 
is not affected by the degree of the emotional afflatus 
accompanying it. Whether it communicates ordinary 


Ture PrixcrPce og Source oF THeotocy. 289 


natural facts, or the transcendent supernatural mysteries 
of creation, providence and redemption, it communicates 
all alike with the same infallible certainty. There are 
no degrees in its accuracy. It teaches the little and the 
great with the same inerrancy. 

11. It is an influence the exertion of which upon the 
mind is attested to others, either directly or indirectly, 
by miraculous proof. Either the announcements of the 
inspired person were immediately accompanied by mira- 
cles, so that he was directly attested as delivering God’s 
message, since none but God can work miracles, and he 
cannot endorse a fraud; or the professedly inspired 
person was vouched for by another whose inspiration 
was proved by miraculous credentials, so that he was 
thus indirectly attested as an inspired messenger from 
God. Reason legitimately demands that the claim to 
inspiration be confirmed by nothing short of miraculous 
evidence, and this fair requirement God actually meets. 
Prophets and apostles were, and the Scriptures are, 
sustained by miracles. 

Let us now gather up these marks, generic and spe 
cific, of inspiration into a descriptive definition: 

Inspiration is an immediate, supernatural influence 
of the Holy Ghost upon the mind, objectively commu- 
nicating to it such truth as God wills to impart, effecting 
the infallible communication to others of that truth, and 
attested by miraculous proof. 

II. The second aspect of inspiration which comes to 
be considered is its relations. What is its relation to 
revelation? What to the Scriptures ? 


The impression conveyed by some of Dr. Charles 
19 





290 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Hodge’s remarks in the chapter of his Systematic The- 
ology on the Protestant Rule of Faith and Duty, section 
on Inspiration, is that revelation precedes inspiration. 
The truth to be communicated — that is, the super- 
natural truth — was revealed to the prophets and apos- 
tles, and then inspiration controlled them in its delivery. 
The confusion here is between revelation to the sacred 
writers and revelation by them to others. The latter is 
the sense in which the word is commonly employed, and 
in which, to avoid confusion, it ought to be employed. 
The revelation of the matter to be taught, which was 
made to the prophets and apostles, is precisely inspira- 
tion. The revelation of the truth by them to others is 
the result of inspiration. 

Dr. Thornwell well puts the case thus, “This, then, 
is the divine arrangement. A class of men is put in 
charge of that which is to be the object of faith; this is 
inspiration. They report to others the word of the 
Lord; this is revelation; and this report is the medium 
through which a saving faith is engendered. 
Inspiration gives rise to revelation; revelation to 
faith.” ? 

Calvin makes no distinction between revelation, as 
understood by Dr. Hodge, and inspiration, in the case 
of Paul as described by himself in the first chapter of 
Galatians — a case alleged by Dr. Hodge as supporting 
his distinction. The apostle says, “But I certify you, 
brethren, that the gospel which was preached-of me is 
not after men. For I neither received it of man, neither 
was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 


1 Coll. Writings, Vol. III., p. 154. 


Tue PrincteLe or Source oF THEotoey. 291 


On this Calvin remarks, “It was necessary that Paul 
should state his doctrine in opposition to the whole 
world, and should rest it on this ground, that he had 
acquired it not in the school of any man, but by revela- 
tion from God. . . . His divine instruction com- 
municated to him by immediate inspiration,” ete. The 
reformer’s view, then, was that the revelation made to 
Paul was by inspiration. The same influence which 
communicated the gospel to the apostle enabled him to 
communicate the gospel to others. Mere difference of 
time between the impartation of it to the apostle, and 
the delivery of it by him is not material. The influence 
was the same in both cases. He was inspired when he 
received the gospel, and inspired when he communicated 
it to the church. The inspiring influence was precisely 
the revealing influence, whether communicating the 
truth to him or through him. 

There were revelations of God’s will which were not 
made by the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
but through voices, dreams, visions, angelic appearances, 
and epiphanies of the Son of God. But the revelation 
of truth designed to be communicated in authoritative 
and permanent writings to the church has, at least 
mainly, been made by that inspiration. It is only with 
reference to such revelation that the question occurs in 
connection with inspiration. Moses may have to some 

extent compiled, but in compiling he was inspired by 
the Spirit to use the matter in hand as a divine revela- 
tion, either as originating supernatural truth or as select- 
ing natural. 

What inspiration did for the sacred writers the in- 





992 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


spired writings do for us. Inspiration revealed truth 
to them; the Scriptures reveal the same truth tous. We 
do not, as they, acquire the truth from the imspiring 
snfluence exerted upon us, but from the inspired Word 
speaking to us. 

Tt is evident that the term revelation is apt to be 
employed in two different relations, and the confusion 
of the relations induces confusion in the use of the term. 
The first relation is that of the Spirit inspiring to the 
person inspired; the second is that of the inspired truth 
to the uninspired hearer. In the first case, inspiration 
is the same as revelation, and the control of the mind 
inspired in the delivery of the truth revealed. In the 
second case, revelation is the product of inspiration. 
The Spirit inspiring was the revealer of truth to the 
sacred writer. The Word inspired is the revelation of 
truth to the hearer. 

In order to avoid confusion in the use of the term 
revelation, it is advisable to confine it to the product of 
inspiration — the inspired writings themselves. In 
them we have the revelation of God’s will, embracing 
some things strictly revealed, and some things already 
known, but uttered by inspiration. The Scriptures are 
truly spoken of as God’s revelation. Inspiration, then, 
is the cause of revelation; revelation, or the Seripture, 
is the effect of inspiration. 

Revelation, or revealed truth, as the product of inspi- 
ration is the middle term between inspiration and faith. 
The Spirit communicated the truth to the sacred writers 
by inspiration; the Spirit enables us to receive the same 
truth by faith. 


Tur PRINCIPLE oR SouRcE oF THEOLOGY. 293 


Again; revelation as the product of inspiration is 
common to the prophets and apostles, on the one hand, 
and ourselves on the other. Their specific difference is 
inspiration; ours is faith. 

Once more; the prophets and apostles communicate 
the Scriptures; we receive them as communicated. 

Revelation, then, does not precede inspiration, but 
inspiration precedes revelation, that is, the revealed 
truth in the Scriptures. Revelation, conceived as the 
act of revealing is inspiration, and should be so termed ; 
revelation conceived as the thing revealed is the Bible, 
and they should be used as synonyms. 

As inspiration precedes revelation, so revelation pre- 
cedes faith. It is the report which God calls prophets 
and apostles to make, and us to believe. God gives his 
testimony through them, and requires us to accept it. 
Inspiration, revelation, faith — this is the true order. 

III. The third aspect of inspiration which must be 
examined is its extent. 

The inquiry here is twofold: First, what is the degree 
of inspiration? —that is, were there degrees in the 
inspiration of inspired persons, and consequently of the 
inspired writings? Secondly, what is the scope of in- 
spiration ?— that is, is every part of the canonical 
Scriptures inspired ? 

First, the degree of inspiration. 

In considering the question, Were there different 
degrees of the inspiring influence exerted upon the 
persons inspired, the theories will here be thrown out of 
account which deny the supernatural and objective char- 
acter of inspiration. They are naturalistic, if not posi- 


7 


tively infidel, and have already been, to a greater or less 
extent, discussed. To those who admit the fact of a 
supernatural, objective, authoritative inspiration the 
contest for supremacy is between four general theories 
with their special modifications. These are: 

First. What is called the mechanical theory. This 
theory, it is claimed, maintains that the inspired persons 
were involuntary, passive instruments controlled by the 
inspiring influence, as are mechanical instruments by 
those who use them. It may be doubted whether it has, 
to any considerable extent, been maintained in the forta 
in which it is stated by its opponents. The language of 
some of the early fathers, although often unguarded and 
extravagant, was intended to express in strong and un- 
equivocal terms the doctrine of verbal dictation, a doc- 
trine with which the mechanical theory is sometimes 
erroneously confounded. The identification of the two 
is conveniently employed to discredit that of verbal 
dictation, which is really the same as verbal inspiration. 
In sinking the easily conquered mechanical theory the 
attempt is made to engulf in the vortex in which it goes 
down the doctrine of plenary, verbal inspiration. But 
it is manifest that the verbal inspiration of the inspired 
persons, or the inspiration which infused into them the 
words they employed, would have been the same as the 
dictation of their words. One is unable to see the differ- 
ence between them. At least, let it be understood that 
in the rejection, in this discussion, of the mechanical 
theory, there is no intention to include that of verbal 
dictation, and that in the advocacy of verbal dictation it 
is not designed to espouse the mechanical theory. 


294 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


Tue PrincreLE or Source oF THEotoey. 295 


Secondly. The theory of different degrees of inspira- 
tion. According to this theory, the degree of the inspir- 
ing influence was greater or less in proportion to the 
importance of the matter, and to the needs of the mind 
inspired. The degrees of inspiration have been repre- 
sented as elevation, superintendence, direction, and sug- 
gestion. The theory has been, and is, adopted by some 
writers reputedly orthodox. 

Thirdly. What may be termed the theory of spiritual 
insight or spiritual intuition — the theory maintained 
by rationalists who admit the supernatural element in 
revelation, by broad-churchmen, and by the “higher 
critics” of the present day. Whatever may be the differ- 
ent forms in which this theory may be presented by 
different writers, its essence is that the inspiring influ- 
ence is simply an afflatus, which puts the inspired 
person into sympathy, more or less intense, with the 
truth to be communicated, but which does not secure him 
against liability to error in the communication of the 
truth. Briefly, what it affirms is fallibility and errancy 
in the persons inspired, both as to their conceptions and 
productions; what it denies is their infallibility and 
inerrancy. Of course, it utterly discards the doctrine of 
verbal inspiration. According to it, the Scriptures are 
destitute of infallibility and inerrancy. 

Fourthly. What is denominated the dynamical 
theory. It holds that both thought and language are 
imparted by the inspiring influence to the inspired 
person, but in such a manner as not to exclude the volun- 
tary exercise of the human faculties, or the spontaneous 
employment of individual peculiarities in speaking and 


296 Duscussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


writing. The name dynamical seems to have been 
attached ta it to discriminate it from the so-called me- 
chanical theory, so far as the latter was conceived as 
suppressing the human feature of inspiration — the 
unforced operation of human thought and utterance. 
This theory is the same as that commonly styled the 
theory of verbal inspiration, and will be recognized in 
these remarks under its older and more familiar desig- 
nation. If this doctrine can be proved, there will exist 
no necessity for the detailed discussion of the other 
theories. Its proof is their disproof. Profoundly con- 
vineed that the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the 
Scriptures — that is, that inspiration extends to their 
words as well as to their sense—is the only true doctrine, 
of vital importance to the support of divine truth and to” 
the maintenance of the interests of Christ’s Church, I 
will endeavor, with God’s help to substantiate it; first, 
by presenting direct, positive proofs, and, secondly, by 
answering some of the most prominent objections which 
have been urged against it.* 
One or two things need, at the outset, to be premised. 
First. As already remarked, the nature of inspiration 
must be mainly collected from the Scriptures them- 
selves. The doctrine of the early Christian fathers on 
the subject is of value, since it must be presumed that 
they knew the testimony of the apostles; but, after all, 
1An attempt to meet all the objections would be a task of 
supererogation—they have, for the most part, been answered over 
and over; and would, furthermore, require a volume, or rather 
volumes, instead of a brief discussion. Among others, reference 


is made to Gaussen, Lee, Bannerman, the two Hodges, Shedd, 
Thornwell. 


Tur PrinciPLE or Source oF THEonoey. 297 


the controlling evidence must be drawn from the state- 
ments of the Bible. 

Secondly. This, it is charged, is reasoning in a circle 
— the assumption of the inspiration of the Scriptures is 
used to establish their inspiration. To this I answer— 

In the first place, the exposition thus far has been 
concerned chiefly about the nature of inspiration, and 
assuredly the Scriptures are competent to testify as to 
their own nature. Would a man be charged with reason- 
ing in a circle, because he had appealed to his own con- 
sciousness in regard to facts internal to him ? 

Tn the second place, the pinch of the question touching 
inspiration as a whole will not be evaded. The ground 
is here taken that it is competent to appeal to the Scrip- 
tures as inspired in proof of the fact as well as the nature 
of their inspiration, and that this does not involve the 
vice of an illegitimate reasoning in a circle. Suppose 
we should use the argument: God declares that he is 
true; therefore, God is true. Here God’s truth would 
be proved by his truth. Would that be a vicious reason- 
ing in acircle? The atheist might say, You assume that 
there is a God of truth. So we do; and so do all sensible 
men. But if that does not satisfy the atheist, we are 
prepared to support our assumption — to prove incon- 
testably that there is a God of truth. If there be, he 
is true in testifying to his truth. In like manner, we 
start with the premise: the Scriptures are divine, be- 
cause inspired, and are, therefore, true in testifying to 
their own inspiration. Are they inspired? That proves 
them divine. Are they divine? That proves them true. 
Tf the infidel denies the premise, it can be proved. But 


ee. 





298 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


in proving it, the appeal was not, in the first instance, to 
their inspiration, to establish their inspiration. The 
appeal was to miracles as the incontestable proof of their 
inspiration. Let us divide. There are obviously two 
cases which must be considered separately from each 
other. What two cases? That of the contemporaries of 
the prophets and apostles; and that of ourselves, the 
present readers of the Scriptures. 

Let us consider the case of the contemporaries of the 
prophets and apostles first. Those who professed to be 
prophets and apostles claimed to be inspired of God to 
declare his will. The claim was extraordinary, and, of 
course, had to be made good by extraordinary proofs. 
The demand was met. Miracles, miracles in the exter- 
nal and phenomenal sphere, miracles appealing to the 
senses, miracles which none but God could work, aecom- 
panied their delivery of their messages. Now, from the 
nature of the case, their contemporaries were the judges, 
and the only competent judges, whether these miracles 
were actually wrought. They decided that they were, 
and consequently that the claim of the prophet or apostle 
was made good. They accepted them as inspired, and, 
therefore, received their official communications both 
oral and written as inspired. When, then, the question 
arose whether a writing purporting to have been the 
production of a prophet or apostle was really his, the 
only thing required to settle the question was to get his 
testimony to his authorship of the writing. If that was 
secured, as he was known to be inspired, the last shade 
of doubt was removed: the writing was inspired. It 
will be seen, therefore, that the fact of the inspiration 


dai 


Tur PrincrPLe or Source oF THEoLtoay. 299 


of the Scriptures was settled upon miraculous evidence 
by the contemporaries of the prophets and apostles; and 
when they settled the fact they settled it not for their 
own age alone, but for all time; not for themselves 
alone, but also for us. Clearly, when they, upon demon- 
strative proof, accepted a writing as inspired, they re- 
ceived as indubitable its testimony alike to the fact, the 
nature, and the extent of its inspiration. Let it, then, 
be distinctly observed that in the first instance — that 
of the contemporaries of the prophets and apostles — 
inspiration was not proved by inspiration. The inspira- 
tion of the persons claiming to be inspired was proved 
by miracles, and their inspiration, thus proved, guar- 
anteed the inspiration of their instructions oral and 
written. 

Let us next contemplate the case of ourselves as 
present readers of the Scriptures. We are bound to 
accept them as they have come down to us in unbroken 
transmission from the contemporaries of the sacred 
writers. We are not the most competent judges as to 
their inspiration. Judges we are to a certain extent; 
to what extent will be evinced in a subsequent part of 
this discussion; but we are not the best qualified judges. 
The judges whose decision was determinative and ulti- 
mate were the contemporaries of the writers, and if we 
challenge their judgment and substitute for it our own 
we are guilty of folly. If, for example, an Englishman 
at the present day should question the authorship of the 
speeches of Lord Chatham and Edmund Burke in Par- 
liament, he would subject himself to merited ridicule. 
And if an American now should dispute the authorship 


300 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


‘ « 
4 
— 


of the speeches of Webster, Clay and Calhoun in Con- 
gress, he would inevitably share the same fate. Theo 
judgment of their contemporaries was absolutely decisive 
in the premises. They were acquainted with the men 
personally, they heard them with their own ears, and 
they knew that the speeches were published under the 
names of these persons, and acknowledged by them as 
their own. Does not that close the case? What have we 
of the present generation to do but to accept the judg- 
ment of the contemporaries? Even so is it with us in 
relation to the Scriptures. We receive them as the pro- 
ductions of the men whose names they bear, and as con- 
sequently inspired, upon the conclusive testimony of the 
church contemporary with the writers. 

We are entitled, therefore, to start with the assump- 
tion that the Scriptures are inspired. We neither beg 
the question, nor reason in a vicious circle, when we 
appeal to the testimony of the Scriptures as inspired to 
their own inspiration. It is the surest proof to which we 
can resort. 

It is common to say, that in proving the inspiration 
of the Scriptures, in order to avoid a circle, we adduce 
not their inspiration, but their credibility. The affirma- 
tion needs to be seriously qualified. We do appeal to 
their credibility — their authenticity and trustworthi- 
ness. But their absolute credibility consists precisely in 
the fact of their inspiration. If not, their credibility is 
simply that of a human witness, and consequently rela- 
tive, not absolute. We need in so vital a matter, not 
human credibility, however great; we need divine credi- 
bility. The ground, then, is unhesitatingly taken that it 


Tue Princirecte or Source or THeontoey. 301 


is valid to allege the testimony of the Scriptures to their 
own inspiration — to its fact, its nature, its extent and 
its scope. 

In the third place, the higher critics themselves ac- 
knowledge the inspiration (as they conceive it) of some 
parts of the Bible. Now, from those very parts we fetch 
proof in regard to their inspiration. Is that illegiti- 
mate ? 

If, then, the Scriptures are a perfectly credible wit- 
ness, their testimony to their verbal inspiration, if cor- 
rectly quoted, ought to settle the question. At least it 
ought to settle it with those who do not exalt reason to a 
seat of authority superior to that of the Scriptures. If . 
reason be held to be merely co-ordinate with the Bible, 
the deductions of reason could not outweigh the positive 
statements of the Bible. The mere objections of the one 
could not countervail the unequivocal testimony of the 
other. 

Secondly. The question of verbal inspiration is here 
concerned about the original manuscripts of the Scrip- 
tures, and not about copies and translations. In what 
sense inspiration belongs to the latter is an inquiry 
which will be considered before the discussion closes; 
but the affirmation now made is that the original doct- 
ments — the autographs — were verbally inspired, and 
therefore characterized by absolute inerrancy. 

The objection that the maintainers of the verbal in- 
spiration of the original manuscripts make a positive 
and sweeping assertion concerning documents which they 
have never seen, is one that recoils upon the objectors 
and materially damages their cause. For, if upon this 


302 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





ground — the non-possession of the autographs — there 
is no right to affirm their verbal inspiration, on the very 
same ground there is no right to deny it. Neither party 
to the controversy is entitled to speak from actual ob- 
servation. Neither has inspected the autographs. How, 
then, stands the case? Looked at simply from this point 
of view the respective causes are in equilibrio. There is 
an equipoise of evidence between the two. Neither has 
the evidence of actual investigation. Let it be admitted 
that so far they check each other; if one party cannot 
affirm, the other cannot deny. 

This, however, is not all. In every such ease of an 
even balance of evidence, where the matter involved does 
not transcend the possibility of knowledge, the question 
arises, whether the equilibrium may not be destroyed, 
the beam kicked, by new evidence deducible from some 
other legitimate source. It must be allowed, too, that in 
such eases even faint presumptions avail to destroy the 
equipoise and settle the question. Now, it is asked of 
the denier of the verbal inspiration of the original 
Scriptures, what extraneous, additional evidence he is 
able to adduce. So far as appears to the contrary, he can 
plead none which is of any weight. If he appeal to the 
natural reason, the reply is that reason cannot be a 
credible witness, much less a judge, in this case. If 
reason is entitled to say what the Scriptures ought to be, 
the authority of the Scriptures is subordinated to that 
of reason. Every man may manufacture his own Bible. 
But that is not the position contended for by those with 
whom this argument exists. If he appeal to the difficul- 
ties, errors, discrepancies which he professes to find in 


Tuer PrincreLte or Source oF THEotoey. 303 


the Scriptures, the answer is ready that he changes the 
issue. The question is, not as to copies and versions, but 
as to the original documents. ‘The copies and versions 
contain errors; therefore, they were not verbally in- 
spired, is an entirely different argument from this: the 
autographs contain errors; therefore, they were not 
verbally inspired. Nor is there any conceivable right to 
infer that, because the copies and versions contain errors, 
_ the autographs must have contained them. That would 
be to violate common sense and all analogy. If he say 
that the alleged errors are structural, that from their 
nature they must have inhered in the originals, this is 
more easily said than proved; and the proof of the 
allegation may safely be challenged. 

On the other hand, if, in view of the equipoise men- 
tioned, the affirmer of the verbal inspiration of the 
original Scriptures be asked, what new, additional evi- 
dence he can bring forward, he appeals to the positive 
testimony of the Scriptures themselves as a credible wit- 
ness. The peculiar force of this appeal lies not in the 
fact that there are one or two, or a few, insulated pas- 
sages of a doubtful character in which that testimony is 
rendered, but that the testimony is implicated in the 
whole drift, trend, genius of the Scripture, so that if it 
were eliminated the Scriptures would be so mutilated as 
to lose their identity. Granted, the testimony is con- 
veyed in copies and translations, but surely the im- 
pugner of verbal inspiration would not plead that fact 
as invalidating the testimony. If the copies and versions 
embodying this testimony are rejected as of no scriptura! 
authority because they contain it, what Scripture at all 


304 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 
> 


would remain? The denier of verbal inspiration who 
would take that ground would rank himself with avowed 
infidels who reject a supernatural revelation, and discard 
the Bible. The very Scriptures which are allowed by 
the objectors to verbal inspiration are explicit in their 
testimony in its favor. Either, then, they must accept — 
the testimony of Scriptures acknowledged by themselves 
to be canonical and credible, or in rejecting the testi- 
mony deny the existence of any canonical and credible 
Scriptures. 

The fact is not lost sight of that these deniers of verbal 
inspiration contend that even those writings which they 
rank as Scriptures, and which they confess to have some 
inspiration, are not absolutely inerrant ; that the writers, 
while enjoying a degree of inspiration, were liable to 
err. But surely it is going beyond their own theory to 
hold that these errors consisted in express, repeated, 
concurrent statements which were erroneous in regard 
to doctrines of high importance. It is going beyond 
their own theory to hold that David and Isaiah, Jere- 
miah and Ezekiel, Matthew and John, Paul and Peter 
concur in making false assertions touching so significant 
a matter as the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. It 
is, more than all, going beyond their own theory to main- 
tain that Christ himself made fallacious assertions touch- 
ing this vitally important subject. But this they do 
when they deny the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. 
Two consequences result: first, they are fatally incon- 
sistent with themselves. They affirm the authority of 
some of the Scriptures, and deny their veracity. Sec- 
ondly, in refusing the testimony of the Seriptures, 


THe PrrincieLe or Source or Turonoay. 305 


uniformly and explicitly furnished, to their verbal 
inspiration, they wipe out the Scriptures themselves. 
For it is obvious that writings professing to come from 
God, and to be dictated by his spirit, and at the same 
time abounding in false statements, are the forgeries of 
men. It would be an insult to the God of truth to 
attribute them to him; they are fradulent human pro- 
ductions — fraudulent, not because they do not utter 
some truth, but because they do utter some falsehood, 
while they claim to be wholly from God. 

It is difficult to see how the higher critics can avoid 
the consequence of charging Christ himself with a want 
- of veracity in testifying to the inspiration of the Old 
Testament Scriptures, and not only to their inspiration, 
but to the verbal inspiration of all of them, except upon 
one supposition. That is, that in accordance with their 
general position of the fallibility and errancy of all the 
scriptural writers, they may hold that the evangelists 
incorrectly reported the words of their Master. It was 
not he who erred, but they. To this I reply: 

In the first place, the improbability of the supposition 
is so violent as to amount to an impossibility. The 
evangelists did not report the testimony of Christ in 
regard to this matter as borne on some exceptional occa- 
sion, but as one which he was in the habit of uttering, 
and of employing in solemn and formal argument in 
vindication of his divine commission, and in refutation 
of the positions taken by the religious teachers of the 
people. He appealed to the inspired Scriptures as the 
only standard of truth by which both his own claims and 


those of his opponents were to be judged. Now, if the 
20 






eo et 
306 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


evangelists have given to the church and the world an. 
incorrect report of their Master’s explicit and reiterated 
teachings in relation to so vitally important a subject, 
one not of subordinate, but of fundamental and con- 
trolling value, the consequence would be inevitable that 
their whole history, as well of the facts of Christ’s life, 
death and resurrection, as of his doctrinal teachings, 
would be liable to suspicion and convicted of untrust- 
worthiness. 

There is a special consideration which is here de- 
serving of attention. The Saviour enjoined it upon his 
disciples that when they should be brought before coun- 
cils, they should take no thought what they should say, 
for the Holy Ghost would teach them in the self-same 
hour what they ought to say. Now if the laws of human 
nature and the history of human precedents be of any 
force, it amounts to moral certainty that when fore- 
casting their own defence from charges brought against 
them, they never would have dreamed of such a rule of 
action as that. They must have been dependent upou 
their Master for the very conception of it, and must have 
correctly reported his words in regard to it. From one 
instance learn all. And what gives this consideration 
the greater point is, that the rule which they reported the 
Saviour as having imposed on them is one which ex- 
pressly conveyed the doctrine of the verbal dictation 
of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost shall teach you what ye 
ought to say. The critics are hard put to it when to 
relieve themselves of blasphemy against the Son of God 
they deny the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 

In the second place, if the evangelists who heard their 


ee 
Tue PrincieLe or Source or THoEeotoey. 307 


Master speaking in the flesh incorrectly reported his 


doctrine concerning inspiration, what about Peter? He 


declares that holy men of God spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost. In using these words he did not 
profess to report the words of Christ. The question 
occurs, Did he incorrectly report himself? If it be 
replied that the second Epistle of Peter is of question- 
able canonicity, the question returns, Did he in the first 
epistle incorrectly report himself when he spoke of the 
oracles of God? And did Paul incorrectly report him- 
self when he, too, calls the Scriptures the oracles of God, 
in the Epistle to the Romans, the canonical authority of 
which is not disputed? It will not be denied that 
whether oracles designate the sources of answers or the 
answers themselves, oracular responses were always in 
words. It follows that Peter and Paul, who did not 
profess to report the words of the Master in the flesh, 
must have incorrectly reported themselves, when they 
taught the verbal inspiration of the Old Testament 
Scriptures; for did not, the critics being judges, the 
evangelists incorrectly report the Master because they 
represent him as teaching the same thing? 

With these preliminary considerations —that the 
appeal on the question before us must be taken chiefly 
to the statements of the Scriptures themselves; and that 
the discussion is mainly concerned about the original 
manuscripts of the Scriptures; the way is open to pre- 
sent the proofs of verbal inspiration. 

1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament were verbally 
inspired. 

(1) This is affirmed by the Old Testament writers. 


308 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIONS. 


Moses constantly affirms that God delivered commands 
to him in words. In the extraordinary interviews be- 
tween Jehovah and his servant, colloquies were held, as 
between man and man, in which the same predication 
is made of God’s words as of the words of Moses, “God 
said unto Moses”; “Moses said unto God.” (Ex. iii.) 
The language, “The Lord said unto Moses,” “the Lord 
spake unto Moses,” is so uniformly employed in Exodus 
and Leviticus that it has the. force of a formula... Fur- 
ther, it is expressly stated that Moses was commanded 
to speak to the children of Israel what God had spoken 
to him — the very words of Jehovah were put into his 
mouth. One or two citations will suffice, “And the Lord 
called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the taber- 
nacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the chil- 
dren of Israel and say unto them,” ete. (Lev. i. 1, 2.) 
“And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying, 
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,” 
ete. (Lev. xv. 1, 2.) The same language is also used in 
Numbers, “The Lord spake unto Moses.” “The Lord 
spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of 
Israel, and say unto them,” ete. We meet with the same 
fact, substantially, in Deuteronomy. “On this side 
Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to declare this 
law, saying, The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, 
saying,” ete. (Deut. i. 5, 6.) “And the Lord spake unto 
me, saying, Ye have compassed this mountain long 
enough: turn you northward. And command thou the 
people, saying,” ete. (Deut. ii. 2-4.) 

Tt can make no difference, whatever view may be held 
upon the question, whether Moses was the author of the 





Tue PrincrpLe or Source oF Turotocy. 309 


Pentateuch. If he were, as Christ and the apostles 
testify, he directly testifies to his verbal inspiration. 
One who denies this denies the statements of Scripture. 
The higher critics, who, notwithstanding the testimony 
of Christ and the apostles, attribute the authorship of 
the Pentateuch to a writer who lived long after Moses, 
admit the inspiration of that subsequent writer. But 
he, on that supposition, affirms the verbal inspiration of 
Moses — affirms it just as emphatically as, on the sup- 
position of the Mosaic authorship, Moses asserts it of 
himself. From this view the position of the higher 
critics affords no escape. They are inconsistent with 
themselves. They deny verbal inspiration, and make 
their late writer or writers of the Pentateuch explicitly 
affirm it. Are the critics themselves, by a recent afflatus, 
inspired to recall the express testimony of a former 
inspiration ? 

Very much the same thing was true of Joshua as of 
Moses — he was verbally inspired to teach and guide 
the Israelites. ‘Now after the death of Moses, the ser- 
vant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake 
unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,” 
ete. (Joshua i. 1.) “The Lord spake unto Joshua, say- 
ing,” etc. (Joshua iv. 1.) “And the Lord said unt 
Joshua,” ete. (Joshua vi. 2; vili. 1.) “Now Joshua was 
old and stricken in years, and the Lord said unto him,” 
and then follows the assignment of their respective ter- 
ritories to the tribes. ‘“The Lord also spake unto Joshua, 
saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying,” ete. 
Whoever was the author of the Book of Joshua, he 
affirms the verbal inspiration of Joshua; and, as the 


810 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


book consists largely of what Joshua said, the verbal 
inspiration, to that extent at least, of the book. Further, 
as the writer records what was verbally dictated to the 
great leader, it is obvious that the writer himself must 
have been verbally inspired. 

David claimed verbal inspiration for himself, “The 
Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my 
tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel 
spake to me.” (2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3.) 

Isaiah prefaces his prophecy with language which 
shows that he was possessed of verbal inspiration, “Hear, 
O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath 
spoken”; and he calls on his hearers to hear from him 
the word of the Lord, “Hear the word of the Lord.” (Isa. 
i. 2,10.) He asserts that the Lord spoke to him, “More- 
over the Lord said unto me,” ete. (Isa. viii. 1.) He 
quotes the very words of God, “Now will I rise, saith 
the Lord,” ete. (Isa. xxxiii. 10.) 

Jeremiah is very express and profuse in affirming his 
verbal inspiration — so much so that it is almost super- 
fluous to quote from him. “The words of Jeremiah, the 
son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in 
the land of Benjamin: to whom the word of the Lord 
came,” ete. (Jer. i. 1,2.) “Then the Lord put forth his 
hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto 
me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.” (Jer. 
i. 9.) “Who is the wise man that may understand this ?¢ 
and who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken, that he may declare it,” ete. (Jer. ix. 12.) 
“Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord 
hath spoken.” (Jer. xiii. 15.) “And these are the words 





Tue PrRINcIPLE oR SourcE oF THEoLoey. 311 


that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning 
Judah. For thus saith the Lord,” ete. (Jer. xxx. 4, 5.) 
“The word that the Lord spake against Babylon, and 
against the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the 
prophet,” ete. (Jer. 1. 1.) 

Ezekiel furnishes the same testimony. “And he said 
unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of 
Israel, and speak with my words unto them.” “More- 
over he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I 
shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear 
with thine ears. And go, get thee to them of the cap- 
tivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto 
them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God,” ete. 
(Ezek. iii. 4, 10, 11.) 

Daniel speaks no otherwise. “And he said unto me, 
O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words 
that I speak unto thee.” ‘Now I am come to make thes 
understand what shall befall thy people in the latter 
days: for yet the vision is for many days. And when 
he had spoken such words unto me.” (Dan. x. 11, 14, 
15.) 

Hosea testifies to the same thing. “The word of the 
Lord that came unto Hosea. . . . The beginning of 
the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to 
Hosea.” (Hosea i. 1, 2.) The word of the Lord that 
was spoken to Hosea was spoken to the people by 
him. 

Amos says, “Hear this word that the Lord hath spoken 
against you, O children of Israel.” (Amos iii. 1.) Israel 
was exhorted to hear the word of the Lord spoken to 
Amos and by him spoken to them. 


. ae 
h ; me 
312 Disousstons or TuEoLocicaL Questions. 

Micah claims that the mouth of the Lord spoke by 
him. “But they shall sit every man under his vine and 
under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: 
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.” 
(Micah iv. 4.) 

Through the prophets, generally, runs a stream of - 
testimony to their verbal inspiration, as is indicated by 
the frequent recurrence of such expressions as “the 
word of the Lord,” “the burden of the word of the 
Lord,” “the Lord said,” “the Lord spake,” “thus saith 
the Lord.” 

To all this may be added the consideration that the 
prophets, as their very name implies, were spokesmen of 
God’s words — heralds speaking according to his dicta- 
tion. 

(2) Christ and the New Testament writers affirm the 
verbal inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures. 

Our Saviour used an argument against the Jews, 
“which turned upon the divine authority of the words of 
the Old Testament.” “Jesus answered them, Is it not 
written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called 
them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the 
Scripture cannot be broken: say ye of him whom the 
Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou 
blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?’ 
(John x. 34-36.) Here, let it be noticed, first that 
Jesus declares that the words he cites are part of the 
irrefragable Scriptures; and, secondly, that he calls the 
Scriptures the Word of God. Dr. Driver thinks it 
improper to denominate all the Scriptures the Word of 
God, only some parts of it being, in his opinion, entitled 


Tur PrincrPLe or Sourcrt or TuEeotoey. 313 


to be so characterized. The weight of authority is 
decidedly against him. 

Our Lord did the same thing on another occasion. 
Arguing with the Pharisees, “He saith unto them, How 
then doth David in spirit? call him Lord, saying, The 
Lord said unto my Lord,” ete. (Matt. xxii. 48, 44.) 
Not only did Jesus affirm the verbal inspiration of the 
Old Testament Scriptures, but as the argument is ad- 
dressed to the concessions of the Pharisees it is evident 
that they did the same. 

The Apostle Paul repeatedly affirms that the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures were verbally inspired by God. In 
some passages he represents those Scriptures as iden- 
tified with God, so that what they say is regarded by him 
as said by God himself. “The Scripture saith unto 
Pharaoh.” (Rom. ix. 17.) “And the Scripture fore- 
seeing that God would justify the heathen through 
faith.” (Gal. iii. 8.) “But the Scripture hath concluded 
all under sin.” (Gal. iii. 22.) “God, who at sundry 
times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto 
the fathers by the prophets.” (Heb. i. 1.) 

Paul bases an argument upon the singular number 
of one word in Genesis, “Now to Abraham and his seed 
were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, 
as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is 
Christ.” The argument here is the same with that urged 
touching Christ’s confutation of the Pharisees by ap- 
pealing to a few words in Psa. Ixxxii. 


ley mvebpatt. These words are by some rendered “by the 
Spirit.” If this be the true rendering, the argument based on the 
passage is powerfully enhanced. 





314 Discussions or THEoLocicat Questions. 


The same apostles quotes certain passages of the Old 
Testament as the very words of the Holy Ghost. “Well 
spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our 
fathers.” (Acts xxviii. 25.) “Wherefore as the Holy 
Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not 
your hearts.” (Heb. iii. 7, 8.) “The Holy Ghost this 
signifying.” (Heb. ix. 8.) 

He calls the Serjptures the “oracles of God.” Oracles 
were delivered in words. The inference is plain. 

He also terms the Scriptures the “Word of God,” 
“For the word of God is quick and powerful,” ete. 
(Heb. iv. 12.) The word of God is a compendious 
expression for the words of God. The Scriptures are a 
collection of God’s words, and as they are characterized 
by unity they are fitly designated as his Word. 

Paul declares that “all Scripture is given by inspira- 
tion of God.” The questions are not now raised as to 
the scope of this enunciation concerning the Seriptures, 
and as to the propriety of inserting the verb is between 
“Scripture” and “given”; but it is contended that the 
words “given by inspiration of God,” inspired by God, 
Gedzvevetoc, applied to Scripture, prove that every 
Scripture confessed to be inspired is verbally inspired. 
The argument is as conclusive as it is brief. Scripture 
is writing, which is the same as to say that writing is 
writing. But writing consists of words. If then the 
writing is inspired, the words that compose it are in- 
spired. Paul affirms verbal inspiration. 

The Apostle Peter definitely asserted the verbal 
inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures. “And it 
shall come to pass in the last days, saith God.” (Acts ii. 


Tur PrincieLe or Source or Tueotoey. 315 


17.) “For the prophecy came not in old time by the 
will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter i. 21.) 

In this testimony all the apostles concurred. “And 
when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God 
with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which 
hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that 
in them is: who by the mouth of thy servant David hast 
said,” ete. (Acts iv. 24, 25.) 

2. The Scriptures of the New Testament were verbally 
inspired. 

(1) The Lord Jesus promised to the apostles the 
verbal inspiration of the Holy Spirit when they should 
be called to testify to him and his gospel. “But when 
they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall 
speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what 
ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit 
of your Father which speaketh in you.” (Matt. x. 19, 
20.) “And when they bring you unto the synagogues, 
and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought 
how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: 
for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour 
what ye ought to say.” (Luke xii. 11, 12.) So far for 
the verbal inspiration of their oral teaching. 

(2) The Saviour promised to the apostles the same 
inspiration in all their teaching whether oral or written. 
“But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
things, and bring all things to your remembrance, what- 
soever I have said [N. B.] unto you.” (John xiv. 26.) 
“But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send 





316 Discussions or TuEotocicaL Questions. 


unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, 
which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify 
[N. B.] of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because 
ye have been with me from the beginning.” (John xv. 
26, 27.) One cannot help pausing here to notice the 
conjunct influence of the Spirit’s testimony to the 
apostles, which, of course, would be in words, and of 
their own experience as personal observers. The Spirit's 
testimony and their own testimony would be one and the 
same. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptiz- 
ing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with 
you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” 
(Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.) 

(3) “The apostles placed their writings upon the same 
footing exactly with their oral instructions.” If the 
latter were verbally inspired, so, consequently, were the 
former. “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the 
traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, 
or our epistle.” (2 Thess. ii. 15.) “Moreover, brethren, 
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto yon, 
which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand.” 
(1 Cor. xv. 1.) “But these are written, that ye might 
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and 
that believing ye might have life through his name.” 
(John xx. 31.) “That which was from the beginning, 
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, 
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, 
of the Word of life (for the life was manifested, and we 
have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that 


Tuer PrinciPLe or Source or TuErotoey. 317 


eternal life, which was with the Father, and was mani- 
fested unto us); that which we have seen and heard 
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship 
with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father 
and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write 
we unto you, that your joy may be full.” (1 John i. 
1-4.) If, then, the oral teachings of the apostles were, 
as has been incontestably proved, verbally inspired, so 
were their writings. 

(4) If the apostles “attributed to their own composi- 
tions” equal authority with that of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, and the latter were, as has been shown, 
verbally inspired, so likewise were the former. That 
they did ascribe such authority to their writings is 
proved by facts, as recorded in the New Testament. 
Peter dealt with Paul’s epistles in that way. He ranked 
them, as to authority, with “the other Scriptures.” “And 
account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; 
even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the 
wisdom given [N. B.] unto him hath written unto you; 
as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these 
things; in which are some things hard to be understood, 
which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as 
they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own de- 
struction.” (2 Peter iii. 15,16.) Paul quotes Luke as 
entitled to equal consideration with Moses. “For the 
Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that tread- 
eth out the corn. And, The laborer is worthy of his 
reward.” (1 Tim. v. 18.) The quotation in the first 
part of the verse is from Deut. xxv. 4, and that in the 
last part is found nowhere else, as cited by Paul, than 


318 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





in the Gospel of Luke x. 7. The words of Paul and 
those of Luke are, in the original, precisely the same. 
(See also Col. iv. 16, 1 Thess. v. 27.) 

(5) Paul distinctly asserts the verbal inspiration of 
his teachings oral and written. He tells the Thessalon- 
ians that they had received his instructions as the word 
of God, and not as the word of man. ‘For this cause 
also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye 
received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye re- 
ceived it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the 
word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that 
believe.” (1 Thess. ii. 13.) He declares to the Corin- 
thians, that he delivered the gospel in the words which 
the Holy Ghost taught him. “And my speech and my 
preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wis- 
dom.” “Which things also we speak, not in the words 
which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy | 
Ghost teacheth.” (1 Cor. ii. 4, 13.) 

Thus far the argument has been based in the state- 
ments of the New Testament Scriptures, but another 
of a general character may be added— 

(6) Reasoning a minori ad majus, it must be inferred 
that if the Old Testament Scriptures were verbally in- 
spired, much more were those of the New Testament. 

In the first place, it will not be disputed that the 
teachings of Christ were verbally inspired, or at least 
had an authority exactly the same with that conferred 
upon men by verbal inspiration. Take any supposition 
one pleases. If he taught as man, as he was endued, in 
that capacity, with the Holy Ghost without measure, he 
was, in the highest sense, verbally inspired. If he taught 


Tue PrincieLe or Source oF Turotoey. 319 


as God, he was the fountain itself of inspiration, and 
directly expressed omniscience and infinite truth in his 
instructions. This single consideration ought with ecan- 
did minds to lift the New Testament to the highest 
plane of verbal inspiration. If it be objected to this 
view that the discourses of Christ were reported in the 
writings of men, and were colored by their imperfection 
and fallibility, the reply is irresistible by one who 
respects the New Testament Scriptures as credible, that 
the Lord Jesus expressly promised to give the apostles 
the Holy Spirit, who should bring to their remembrance 
all that he had said to them. They had, it is true, been 
ear-witnesses of his instructions, but if their memory, 
the memory of all of them, should fail them in exactness 
of retention, its deficiency would be infallibly supplied 
by the dictation of the Holy Ghost. 

In the second place, the apostles, according to our 
Saviour’s own statement were greater than the Old Tes- 
tament prophets. John the Baptist was the greatest 
of the prophets, because he was nearer to Christ than 
they, but he that was least in the New Testament dis- 
pensation was greater than he because nearer to Christ 
than he was. Surely the apostles were not least in the 
kingdom of heaven. The argument is conclusive that 
they were greater than John and the whole succession of 
Old Testament prophets. If, therefore, the prophets 
were verbally inspired, much more were the apostles of 
our Lord’s extraordinary call. If they were not verbally 
inspired they were less than the prophets of the old 
dispensation; a supposition which cannot be tolerated, 
as contradictory to the words of Jesus. 





320 Discusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


In the third place, the New Testament dispensation 
is the culmination, the crowning development of the old 
economy. It would, therefore, be absurd to ascribe to 
the New attributes inferior to those belonging to the 
Old — to make Christianity an institute of less dignity 
and glory than Judaism. 

The conclusion at which we have arrived by this line 
of argument is, that both the Old and New Testaments 
were verbally inspired, and, therefore, that verbal insp:- 
ration is predicable of the whole Bible. Having ap 
pealed to the direct statements of the Scriptures in proof 
of their verbal inspiration, other arguments tending to 
the same result will now be submitted. 

3. The primitive church held the doctrine of verbal 
inspiration. Assuredly it knew the doctrine of the 
apostles on the subject. It is almost unaccountable that 
Mr. Morell should have denied that the early church 
regarded the writings of the apostles and evangelists as 
verbally inspired. That the Scriptures were verbally 
inspired was the view of Justin, Irenzeus, Athenagoras, 
Origen, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Chrysostom, Macarius, 
and Cyril of Alexandria That Augustin held the 
doctrine which is here contended for is evinced by Dr. 
Shedd’s citation from his De Consensu Evangelistarum 
(I., xxxv.), “ ‘Christ is the head and his apostles are the 
members. Whatever he wished us to read concerning 
his words and deeds, he ordered to be written down as if 


1 There is not room here for the insertion of quotations from 
the early fathers. Reference is made to Suicer, Article ypagn, 
Conybeare’s Bampton Lectures, Lect. 1, Thornwell’s Collected 
Writings, Vol. III., and Gaussen, p. 343. 


Tue Princiete or Source or Turotoay. 321 


with his own hands; and he who reads the narratives 
of the evangelists will believe them as if he saw Christ 
himself writing by their hands and pens.’”1 This 
testimony is explicit enough. The argument here is like 
that in regard to the Canon of Scripture. The early 
church had the true view in that matter, because it knew 
the mind of the apostles concerning it. That settles the 
question for us. And so as the early church, knowing 
the judgment of the apostles on the subject, held the 
view of verbal inspiration, the doctrine must be held 
to be apostolic, and that, of course, ought to determine 
our belief; unless, with the higher critics, we elect to 
differ with the apostles. From such presumption may 
the Lord in mercy deliver us! 

4. The doctrine of verbal inspiration is the only one 
which maintains the plenary inspiration of the Serip- 
tures. 

In the first place, how are we to be assured that God’s 
thoughts are accurately presented, unless the language 
be God’s? If it be replied that the writers were so 
superintended as to guard against error, the question 
arises, In what form was that supervision exercised ? 
If the expression of the ideas was not guarded by this 
superintending influence, it is impossible to see how 
errors of statement could have been prevented? It was 
precisely in expressing the thoughts that the human 
organs were liable to the danger of failing to represent 
them accurately. 

In the second place, if the words were not inspired, 
the contemporaries of the inspired persons would have 


* Dogmat. Theol., Vol. I., p. 74. 
21 


322 Duscusstions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





been under the necessity of taking the testimony of the 
writers themselves that they had exactly presented the 
thoughts which God communicated to them. ~ That 
would have destroyed, or at least impaired, their con- 
fidence in the inerrancy of the writings, since the testi- 
mony would, ex hypothesi, have been that of men as 
fallible, and not as inspired. To us the difficulty would 
be insuperable, as we have no access to the persons of the 
prophets and apostles. In a matter of so vital moment 
we need absolute assurance, and that can only be felt 
upon the conviction that words and thoughts are alike 
inspired. “The theory of verbal dictation,” says Dr. 
Thornwell, “which our author [Morell] declares ‘has 
been so generally abandoned by the thoughtful in the 
present day,’ is the only theory which we have ever 
regarded as consistent with the exigencies of the case, the 
only theory which makes the Bible what it professes to 
be, the Word of God, and an adequate and perfect 
measure of our faith. If its contents, in any instances, 
however insignificant, rest only on the testimony of the 
human agents employed in writing it, in those instances 
we can only believe in man; the statements may be true, 
but they cease to be divine and infallible, and the assent 
which we yield to them becomes opinion and not faith.” * 

In the third place, if all Scripture is not verbally 
inspired we could not know what parts are verbally, and 
therefore, beyond doubt, plenarily inspired. Our con- 
fidence in the whole Scripture would be shaken. It is 
necessary that all be verbally inspired to relieve this 
uncertainty. In matters of eternal concern we need a 


1 Qoll. Writings, Vol. III., p. 51. 


Tue Princrete or Source or THEOLOGY. 323 


“thus saith the Lord” to ground an unquestioning 
faith. 

5. If the Holy Spirit can suggest thoughts he can 
suggest words. If he can give the matter, he can give 
the mode of presenting it. There is no more mystery, 
no more difficulty, in one supposition than in the other. 
Even in the case of the ordinary believer, the Spirit is 
represented as speaking in him and through him, as 
inditing his language in prayer as well as creating his 
dispositions and inciting his thoughts. He is said to 
ery, Abba, Father, in the children of God. (Rom. viii. 
26; Gal. iv. 6.) He is not God’s Son; it is they who 
are children of God, and consequently they who ery, 
Abba, Father, as is expressly stated. (Rom. viii. 15.) 
Yet the Spirit in them utters the same ery. If he can 
and does indite the words of a believer’s prayers, without 
interfering with the active exercises of his own faculties, 
why could he not have suggested the words in which 
inspired men clothed the matter of his communications, 
without suppressing the free play of their minds? 

6. The apostles were endowed with the extraordinary 
gift of speaking fluently in foreign tongues with which 
they were wholly unacquainted. This consideration is 
urged as of the highest importance in its bearing upon 
the question before us, not only as furnishing positive 
proof of the fact of verbal inspiration, but also as meet- 
ing by anticipation one of the commonest objections to 
the doctrine of verbal dictation — namely, that it is 
inconsistent with the manifestation of individual pecn- 
liarities of thought and style in inspired persons, and 
makes them merely mechanical, passive instruments of 





324 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


the sole agency of the Spirit. In regard to the fact 
alleged — the endowment of the apostles with the gift 
of tongues — there can be no dispute except on the part 
of avowed infidels, and this argument is not with in- 
fidels, but with those who admit the credibility of the 
Scriptures and allow a species of inspiration. The 
record in the Acts of the Apostles is explicit — the facts 
are indisputable. 

Now, first, this proves that God can give the words in 
which his will is to be communicated; secondly, that in 
some instances he did give the words; and thirdly, that 
the inspiration of the words did not interfere with 
individual peculiarities of utterance. Certainly Peter 
spoke as Peter, and John as John. If that were true of 
their speaking, there is no conceivable difficulty in sup- 
posing that it was true of their writing. Here we have 
an actual instance of verbal inspiration. The ground is 
rashly and presumptuously taken that the hypothesis 
of verbal inspiration is opposed by an antecedent im- 
possibility, which is equivalent to the assertion that 
Almighty God himself could not make it a fact. With- 
out the attempt now to show, that this is to place a limit 
upon omnipotence because of what appears an impos- 
sibility to the human mind, it is sufficient here to be 
indicated that the supposition of verbal inspiration was 
in this concrete ease palpably actualized. The hypothe- 
sis of an antecedent impossibility is negatived and over- 
thrown by the actual fact. The subject will be farther 
considered when some of the objections to verbal inspira- 
tion will come to be examined. 

7. Accurate thought cannot be disjoined from lan- 


Tuer PRiIncIPLE or Source oF THEoLoey. 325 


guage. Words are its vehicles, both subjectively and 
objectively. When we think accurately and precisely, 
we think in words. To give the thoughts, therefore, is 
to give the words. If this can be made out, verbal 
inspiration is established. Let it be observed that it is 
not intended to say that our feelings are always asso- 
ciated with words. It is conceded that there are emo- 
tions which cannot be expressed, at least adequately 
expressed, in language. Paul says that the Spirit makes 
intercession in the children of God with groanings that 
cannot be uttered. The Greek, however, is literally 
unuttered groanings. But whatever may be the exact 
meaning of those words of the apostle, it is not here 
denied that there are feelings which are so tumultuous 
and confused, or perhaps so deep and poigant that they 
cannot be fitly represented by words. Nor is it meant to 
assert that there may not be certain forms of intellection, 
certain acts of the intelligence — the cognitive faculty, 
which are not possible unless connected with language. 
It may be that there are acts of presentative knowledge, 
in which real objects are immediately apprehended by 
the mind in sense-perception, and acts of representative 
knowledge, in which the images of the real objects 
formerly presented are pictured in the imagination, 
which are not associated with lingual signs. Even in 
these cases, however, it is difficult, if not impossible, to 
determine whether the mind does not spontaneously 
attach some representation in language of the presented 
objects, and lay hold of and retain the objects by some 
word-symbols in its representative processes. But let 
it be admitted that some intellective activities are un- 


326 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL Questions. a 
TORPS 


attended with words; that concession would not affect 
the position here maintained, which is that clear, aceu- 
rate thinking, thinking which is designed to be intelli- 
gibly communicated to others, is done through the 
medium of language. What is contended for is, that the 
kind of thought involved in the reception and especially 
the communication of inspired matter is never disso- 
ciated from words. 

Didactic statement is the very method, as the words 
imply, by which teaching is effected. But teaching was 
the form in which inspired communications were made 
in the first instance by the Spirit to the persons inspired, 
and in the second instance by the inspired persons to 
their fellow-men. Two things have already been estab- 
lished, first — in the discussion of the theory of Schleier- 
macher and Morell — that there is no intuitional faeulty 
of revelation which is correlated with religious truth, 
and only needs to be stimulated by inspiration to activity 
in order clearly to apprehend the “eternal verities” of 
religion; and, secondly, that it is a profound mistake 
to confound a mere emotional afflatus with inspiration. 
The Scriptures affirm, and the church at large has 
always held, that, in the act of inspiring, the Spirit 
positively teaches, that he didactically communicates 
truth to the understanding. It has been shown, in the 
consideration of the nature of inspiration, that it termi- 
nates upon the intellect, and the fact that it was some- 
times entirely disconnected with pious character and 
feelings, as in the cases of Balaam and Caiaphas, was 
pleaded to prove that it is a didactic influence to be care- 
fully discriminated from the holy illumination involved 






Tue Principe or Source or Turoztoay. 327 


in the process of sanctification. We have also seen that 
the Scriptures sustain this view of inspiration, in uni- 
formly declaring that the Lord “spake” in words to the 
prophets and apostles, and that they were commanded 
to deliver his words to others. This ought to be sufficient 
to determine the question. The point, however, now 
insisted upon is that, from the very nature of the case, 
didactic statement supposes thinking through words. 
First. This is obvious in regard to that inspired 
teaching which involved logical processes — which pro- 
ceeded by reasoning. It would seem almost a needless 
task to show the hopelessness of conducting a logical 
process without words. How could we dispense with 
terms, the very constituents of propositions, and there- 
fore the conditions upon which judgments are formed ? 
But terms are concepts expressed in words. This holds 
not only of him who is taught to reason logically, but 
also of him who, in his own mind, reasons logically. 
One would imagine that the logical thinker would make 
but sorry progress, if any progress at all, did he not pin 
his concepts to representative signs; and what are those 
signs but words? Without them he would inevitably 
be compelled at every new step to reinstitute all pre 
ceding steps in the process. In fact, he could not get on 
with it. He must have his mile-posts to mark his 
progress, his labels to distinguish his concepts. Those 
mile-stones and labels are words. But however this may 
be with the thinker himself who is elaborating his own 
processes, it is certainly true of the person taught. Take 
away words and how, in the name of sense, would one 
teach to others either the theory or the practice of logical 


328 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


reasoning? How would he communicate to others a 
logical argument ? 

Now let it be borne in mind that a large part of the 
Scriptures consists of logical arguments and of logically 
connected expositions of truth. These must have been 
taught in words by the inspiring Spirit to the inspired 
persons, and in words are palpably taught by the in- 
spired persons to the uninspired hearers. The Scrip- 
tures, so far as they involve this logical form of didactic 
statement, are but copies of the form of didactic state 
ment made by the Spirit to the prophets and apostles. 
The intellectual action of inspired men must have pro- 
ceeded by language, just as that of the uninspired hearer 
must be conducted in the same way. 

Secondly. Let us consider the case of laws, com- 
mands, precepts. It will scarcely be denied that in the 
formation of laws, and the conception of commands and 
precepts precise and careful thought is required, and 
it is certainly true that in their didactic statement the 
utmost accuracy is demanded. This precision is only 
attainable through verbal apprehension and verbal de- 
livery. Their brevity and compactness exact the em- 
ployment of words, both in framing and expressing 
them. Consciousness and experience may be safely 
appealed to in support of this position. What progress 
would be made in the mental construction of a code of 
human laws except through the instrumentality of 
accurate language? And one may well crave to know 
how it could be communicated without language par- 
taking of the precision of formulas? But it is evident 
that before, and in order to, its exact expression in 






rr 


Tue PrinciP_Le or Source oF THEoLoey. 329 


words, the words must have been previously conceived 
and adopted by the mind. In fact, the intellectual act 
is necessarily performed through the medium of lan- 
guage, or at any rate in inseparable connection with it. 

This becomes greatly clearer, when it is considered 
that the laws and precepts contained in the Scriptures 
are divine — that they are divinely originated, and are 
imposed only by the divine authority. They convey the 
mandatory thoughts of God. Man had no right to frame 
or issue them. It follows that the words in which they 
are embodied must have been by inspiration communi- 
cated to the human writers, just as those words are 
communicated by them tous. The divine law could not 
have been thought out by man without divine words. 
Didactie statement was, in this instance, as well indis- 
pensable to the inspired teacher, as to the uninspired 
persons whom he was commissioned to teach. 

Thirdly. It may be contended that the narratives of 
Scripture must be exempted from the operation of this 
principle. It has already, in the progress of this discus- 
sion, been signalized that inspiration is to be contem- 
plated in two aspects — as the strict revelation to the 
inspired men of unknown or unknowable matter, and 
as the suggestion or presentation to them of known or 
knowable matter. According to that determination the 
narratives of facts level to human apprehension, cogniz- 
able by the mind in its ordinary condition, were inspired 
narratives. That, however, is not exactly the state of the 
question which we are now considering. The question 
now is, whether the narratives of Scripture were, in 
accordance with the laws of the human mind, conceived 


330 Discussions cr THro Logica QuEsTIONs. 


in words. Here again a distinction must be taken — 
between the narratives of facts transcendental and un- 
discoverable by the mere human faculties, and those of 
facts either known to them or discoverable by them. 
The former of these classes of narrative will be ad- 
verted to farther on in the discussion. The question 
now is in regard to the latter. 

It may be said that, in this case, a narrative is con- 
cerned about objects, such as persons, actions, places, 
mountains, rivers, events — all of which, in accordance 
with the laws of presentative and immediate knowledge, 
are as observable phenomena directly brought into con- 
tact with the mind through sense-perception; and that 
when the presentative relation ceases they are, in obe 
dience to the laws of representative knowledge, pictur- 
able by the imagination. In either of these cases, it 
may be urged that the designation of the objects by 
names is not necessary. They are in no need of words 
to impress themselves. The mind observes and holds 
them without the aid of language. So far as the 
individual objects are concerned, this may be so. At 
all events no contention is now made about them so con- 
templated — that is, as single and out of relation to 
other objects. But the case is different with reference 
to a narrative, in which objects are not at all, or only to 
a very small extent, treated as individual and out of 
relation, but in connection with other objects. Now this 
relation may be logical or historical. Objects may be 
logically grouped into classes, and the narrative may 
deal with them as such, as in the instance of armies, 
communities, nations; and then, it is unnecessary to 






: 


a 


P ad 


Tur Prrvciete or Source or THEeotocy. 331 


argue that words become indispensable. Or objects may 
be dealt with historically, in the relations of successive 
and connected facts. And how in that ease the narrative 
either as conceived or stated can proceed without words 
it is impossible to see. Words are often characterized 
as abridgments of thought. This is true. They sym- 
bolize, represent, stand for, tedious processes of thinking. 
In this respect we could not do without them, in the 
conduct of logical processes. But it may also be re 
marked that words discharge the office of bridges. They 
are in narrative the connecting links between fact and 
fact, between person and person, between one predication 
and another. How could the narrative proceed without 
the distinctive names of persons, without the copulative 
conjunction, or the verb to be with its inflections? How 
rapid would be its flow, if instead of distinctive names 
of individuals and peoples, cireumlocutory descriptions 
had to be resorted to; if, instead of the name Moses, 
the scriptural narrator had been under the necessity of 
always describing that person as the man whom God 
chose to be the mediator between the Ruler of heaven 
and earth and the people whom he had selected to be 
peculiarly his own, and to be their lawgiver, leader and 
judge? Every element in the description would have 
been requisite to complete the connotation of marks by 
which that particular individual was distinguished from 
other men. But the name Moses served both as an 
abridgment of that collection of peculiar qualities, and 
a bridge by which the narrator passed rapidly from one 
part of his history to another. So with the name Jsrael, 
and so with all the words which were distinctively 





% 


332 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


e 


characteristic of men and things. It is not deemed 
necessary to press this special argument any farther. 
It would seem manifest that no one could pursue the 
train of a narrative, in his own mind, without the use 
of words. If this conclusion has been fairly reached, it 
would follow that the narratives of Scripture are no 
exception to the law that accurate thought and language 
are inseparably connected, and that the Spirit in inspir- 
ing the sacred writers to record them gave them both the 
facts and the words in which they are couched. 

8. The transcendent truths of Scripture are fairly 
pleadable in proof of the position that clear and precise 
intellectual action is inseparable from words. By trans- 
cendent truths are meant those doctrines which it is not 
in the power of the thinking faculty of man to conceive. 
They are distributable into two classes. First, there are 
truths for the apprehension of which we are solely and 
entirely dependent upon the fundamental laws of belief 
inlaid by nature in the human constitution, which when 
educed from latency, and brought out into activity and 
formal expression, by the actual cases of conscious expe- 
rience, issue in faith-judgments. These when so devel- 
oped are the necessary truths, primary convictions, 
primitive cognitions, which lie at the basis of all our 
thinking processes. To these truths we are conducted 
by the natural and necessary progress of our rational 
faculties. But the deranging force of sin has marred 
this originally natural tendency of the human mind, and 
clouded those faith-judgments to which, without that 
disorderly influence, men would be normally led. Now 
to apprehend — a word of the most general character is 


| 
: 
: 








Tur PrincreLte or Source oF THEoLoay. 333 


advisedly used — to apprehend, to seize and hold these 
transcendent truths, it is requisite that appropriate 
words be employed. Words, so to speak, crystallize and 
conserve them. Without, for instance, the words, cause 
and effect, substance and property, personality, infinite 
or illimitable, it would be difficult if not impossible to 
apprehend clearly and definitely the great and regulative 
truths which they symbolize. So far as any ratiocinative 
process into which they enter as elements is concerned, 
it would be impracticable, without the language which 
expresses them and gives them subsistence. When our 
minds are occupied about them, we are obliged to use 
these significant words — we could not do without them. 

Now the Spirit, when by inspiration he communicated 
the transcendent truths of revelation to the sacred 
writers, gave to them also, in conformity with this 
necessity, the words which signify them. He enabled 
and impelled them to apprehend these doctrines by 
means of the words which he suggested; or to say the 
same thing in another way, the inspiring influence as 
didactic taught them these truths through appropriate 
language. Take, for example, the doctrine of the unity 
of God, either as essential or relative; that is, either as 
the absolute unity of his essence, or as his onliness as 
the triune Jehovah. Stripped of the words (or their 
equivalents) one God, God is one, what abstract appre- 
hension of the divine unity would have been available, 
not to say possible? What practical office would this 
truth have discharged in conflict with a universally 
prevalent polytheism ? 

Secondly. Another class of transcendent truths is 


. elie 


334 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QuEsTIONs. 


that of those which lie altogether beyond. the power oth 


the human mind to originate or develop, which are 
absolutely undiscoverable by the human faculties, under 
their most generic consideration. These are truths 
which would be entirely unknown without supernatural 
revelation. They are created by it. In regard to them 
it must be held, not that they cannot be apprehended 
without being associated with words, but that words are 
the necessary condition of their communication. With- 
out the preéxistence of the words which convey them, 
they would have no existence. In this case God dealt 
with inspired men as a2 father now deals with his young 
children. He first teaches them the words which repre- 
sent truths which, in their infantile state, they cannot 
discover, and which when so conveyed they cannot then 
even apprehend, in the hope that they will be able 
intelligently to receive them when their faculties shall 
have expanded. In such cases, the inspired writers 
accepted the truth, verbally communicated to them, upon 
the same principle as that upon which we rely upon the 
statement of them in the Scriptures — the principle of 
faith. 

Take, as an illustration of this class of truths the 
mysterious doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. It 
was utterly undiscoverable by the human faculties. It 
was neither a thought-judgment, nor a faith-judgment. 
When stated to us, it is impossible for us to compre- 
hend it. We first receive the verbal statement of it in 
the Scriptures, and then believe it upon God’s naked 
testimony. So likewise must it have been with the 
inspired writers. The Spirit first impressed upon their 





‘ 


oe 


Tuer PrincreLe or Source or THEoLoay. 335 


minds the words teaching the doctrine, and then they by 
faith accepted the truth verbally announced. 


Here, then, we have a clear and undoubted instance’ 


of verbal inspiration, of inspiration that must have been 
verbal to be inspiration at all. It is, in this regard, 
analogous to the miraculous endowment of the apostles 
with the gift of speaking in foreign tongues. It is, like 
that, a concrete case of verbal inspiration. And it 
deserves to be remarked that the most precious truths of 
redemption are precisely those doctrines which lie at 
the root of this argument. 

9. Similar proof of verbal inspiration is derivable 
from the prophecies of Scripture, which are predictive 
of events in the distant future, conditioned upon the con- 
tingent action of human wills, and therefore incalculable 
upon the uniform operation of natural law. The argu- 
ment in this relation is so obvious that it needs but little 
elaboration. How could Moses have predicted that God 
would eventually raise up to his people a prophet like 
unto him? How could David and Isaiah have foretold 
some of the minute particulars of Messiah’s death and — 
burial? How could the prophets have exactly forecast 
the fate of kingdoms and cities? How, for example, 
could Isaiah and Jeremiah have described long before- 
hand the fall of Babylon, and the detailed cireumstances 
which attended that event, in their days so improbable ? 
How could these events have been predicted unless the 
words which expressed them had been infused into the 
minds of these prophets? How could they have con- 
cewed them without the origination of the conceptions 
by words? Otherwise, the very thoughts would have 


336 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


been impossible. How could one, had that been possible, 
have predicted the overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo, 
and his imprisonment and death on St. Helena, had he 
not mentally conceived the name of Napoleon as a great 
conqueror, the name of the field of Waterloo, the name 
of the island of St. Helena? Without such conception 
his prediction would have been indefinite — might have 
applied to another man. Were one now to predict the 
destruction of London, how could he do it without first 
conceiving the word London as designative, not of any 
city, but of a particular city? And how could he have 
the conception of the destruction of that great metropolis 
unless the very words of the prediction were imparted to 
him by a supernatural revelation? Without such a pro- 
fession he would be a madman, as with it he would 
probably be regarded as one. 

Again we have an actual, concrete instance of verbal 
inspiration, checking the hypothesis of an antecedent 
impossibility of the fact. 

In regard to prophetic, unpredictive visions, it must 
be confessed that the case is by no means so clear. It 
may be said that they are neither the results of thinking 
nor the judgments of faith; that they were simple 
intuitions, and like all mere presentations were inde- 
pendent of language as to their existence. But it must 
not be forgotten that these visions were didactic; they 
were intended to teach great religious lessons. They 
were not, therefore, merely intuitions of magnificent 
preternatural scenery, but possessed as specific charac- 
ter, as definitely instructive. When Moses and Isaiah 
and Ezekiel had their sublime visions of the effulgent 






Tue PrrincreLe or Source oF THEotoay. 337 


manifestation of the divine perfections, they were by 
the inspiring Spirit informed that it was the glory of 
Jehovah, the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts, in con- 
tradistinction to so-called divinities of the heathen, that 
was represented; and the scenes of the visions were 
apocalyptic of his being, his character and his providen- 
tial efficiency. The experience of the visions involved 
the apprehension through language of the angelic min- 
istries which celebrated his fame. It must also be 
remembered that these visions were designed to extend 
the vocation, or to emphasize the vocation, of the 
prophets to their extraordinary office as teachers, and to 
impress upon them their duties, and the manner in 
which they were to be performed. In a word, the visions 
were not only impressive presentations, but were didac- 
tic propeedentics of the prophetical ministry. The 
meaning of them was interpreted, concurrently with 
their experience, in language by the Spirit to the 
prophets. 

It must, moreover, be considered that not only were 
these sublime presentations made to the exalted imagi- 
nation of the prophets, but that the prophets were moved 
by the Holy Ghost to furnish descriptions of them. And 
as their natural faculties were utterly incompetent to 
conceive these verbal explanations, they were dependent 
upon the inspiring influence both in thinking the words 
and in recording them. This exposition of the case, it is 
believed, is in accordance with the Scriptures, and 
necessitated by the very nature of these visions as super- 
natural apocalypses ; but whatever may be thought about 


the matter, it is enough to know that the descriptions 
22 





838 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


given by the prophets were necessarily in words, and 
that the uniform and the express statement of the Serip- 
tures is, that holy men of God spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost. The descriptions were verbally 
inspired. 

This concludes the consideration of the extent of 
inspiration in that aspect of it which is implied in its 
degree. The argument, pursued with constant and earn- 
est prayer for the guidance by the Spirit of a fallible 
mind, has gone to show that there are no degrees in the 
inspiration of the Scriptures, inasmuch as it is verbal; 
that the record is in words, and that the words were 
furnished by the Holy Ghost. All inspired men, and 
consequently their writings, were controlled by the 
didactic accuracy of the omniscient and almighty Spirit. 
The Scriptures, therefore, are absolutely infallible and 
inerrant. 

Secondly. The scope of inspiration. 

The question here is, Does the inspiration which has 
been contended for belong to all parts of the Seriptures 
—that is, the writings which the church has always held 
to be canonical Scripture? The affirmative will be 
maintained. 

1. The first appeal in proof is to the classic passage, 
2 Tim. iii. 16, which, for necessary reasons, is cited from 
the original: zdou ypagn Oeoxvevatog xai Mgéehepog TpO¢ 
dcdacxadtav, ete. This is rendered in our English Ver- 
sion, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and 
is profitable for doctrine,” ete. 

(1) By some zdoa is considered distributive and not 
collective, and accordingly they construe the affirmation 


Tue PRINCIPLE on Source oF THoEotoey. 339 


to be, Every Scripture is inspired of God —Oedzvevatoc— 
and is profitable for doctrine, etc. This is the alterna- 
tive reading given by the authors of the Revised Version, 
and is favored by Bishop Ellicott. Let this reading be 
adopted, and then, as whatsoever is predicated of every 
part of a whole is predicated of the whole, the construc- 
tion is equivalent to that of the English Bible, “All 
scripture is given by inspiration of God. The question 
here might be as to the meaning of the word Scripture, 
yp2¢7n ; and that question is settled by the immediate 
context. The apostles reminds Timothy that from a 
child he had known “the holy scriptures’”—the holy 
writings, ta feoa yeduyata—which, of course designated 
the sacred Scriptures, the canonical books of the Jews. 
These sacred writings he alluded to under the term 
yeaen; and it can make no difference, as has just been 
indicated, whether it is employed distributively or col- 
lectively; the result is the same. 

(2) The rendering of the Revised Version is, “Every 
seripture inspired of God is also profitable for teach- 
ing,” ete. No doubt the revisers desired to make the 
import of the apostle’s great enunciation plain and exact. 
But in departing from the Authorized Version, in order 
to accomplish this design, they signally failed. Their 
rendering is susceptible of two constructions. It may be 
construed to mean, Every Scripture which is inspired of 
God, and no other Scripture, is, besides being inspired 
of God, also profitable, ete. This meaning may not be 
that intended by the revisers, but it is certainly deducible 
from the structure of the sentence; and such a con- 
struction of his meaning would be nothing short of an 


840 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





injustice, if not an outrage, to the apostle. He had just 
asserted that the sacred Scriptures, the holy writings, 
were taught to Timothy by pious and Jewish lips in his 
childhood, and that they were able to make him wise 
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 
Did he design to imply that among these holy writings, 
or besides them, there were some holy writings which 
were not inspired of God, and were not profitable for 
teaching, ete.? It cannot for a moment be supposed. 

Another construction of which the rendering of the 
Revised Version is capable is, Every Scripture being 
inspired of God is also—in addition to its inspiration— 
profitable, ete. In regard to this possible construction it 
may be said: 

In the first place, it refuses the verb is to the first 
clause, and without sufficient reason inserts it in the 
second. The Greek does not employ the verb in any 
part of the enunciation. Literally rendered into 
English it would be, All (or every) Scripture inspired 
of God, profitable for doctrine (or teaching), ete. As 
that rendering would have been a violation of syntax, 
and, therefore, insufferable, the question arose to the 
translators, Where shall the connecting verb be placed ? 
The English translators very naturally inserted it in 
the first clause, All Scripture is, ete. The revisers reject 
this construction and inject the verb in the second clause. 
The change involved a shocking departure from the old, 
consecrated construction of the English-speaking church, 
which could only have been justified by a sufficient — 
reason. For what good reason was it made? It would 
seem to have been arbitrarily adopted. 


Tue PrIncIPLe or Source oF THErotoey. 341 


In the second place, the removal of the verb from the 
first clause and the interpolation of it in the second made 
it necessary to give xaz the translation “also,” or to leave 
the whole sentence in English verbless and ungrammati- 
eal. This cannot be regarded as an improvement of the 
Authorized Version’s rendering. 

Tn the third place, the translation of xa by “also” 
enforces the imposition of what appears to be an un- 
warrantable meaning upon the apostle’s grand enuncia- 
tion; for the word “also” implies in the second clause 
of the sentence something over and beyond what was 
asserted in the first, something which was not contained 
in the first. It conveys the impression that Scripture 
was not inspired in order to be profitable, but that be 
sides being inspired it is moreover profitable, ete. It 
discharges offices which its mere inspiration does not 
guarantee. How much preferable is the sense, Scripture 
is inspired, and because it is given by inspiration of 
God it is profitable for doctrine, ete., and completely 
furnishes the man of God for all good works! One of 
orthodox tendencies is unable to account for the solici- 
tude which was manifested by the revisers to shift the 
position of the verb “is” in the affirmation of the apostle, 
in view of the fact that it has no place in the Greek text. 
Why not say, as the Authorized Version says, Scripture 
is inspired of God, as say inspired Scripture is profit- 
able? The rendering of the Revised Version is unneces- 
sary, infelicitous and misleading. 

In the fourth place, what is gained by the change? 
The affirmation, Every Scripture inspired of God is 
plainly tantamount to the affirmation, Every Scripture 


@ 


342 Discussions or THEoLogicaL QuEsTIoNs. 





is inspired of God. How could the words inspired of . 
God be predicated of every Scripture unless every Scrip- % 
ture is inspired of God? The two affirmations are pre- | 
cisely equiyalent. What, then, is gained by the change? 

One fails to see the difference between the rendering in 

the text of the Revised Version and the alternative ren- 
dering given in the margin, “Every scripture is inspired 

of God.” 

We are brought, then, to the question, whether the 
change made by the revisers from “all seripture” to 
“every scripture” is of any moment — a question im- 
mediately pertinent to the present discussion. It is not 
likely that they intended to make the passage signify 
that only some Scripture is inspired of God, and that 
there is some Scripture which is not so inspired. That, 
as we have seen, would be to violate the context. But 
if that was not their meaning, the change from “all” to 
“every” is of not the slightest force. If every Seripture 
is inspired of God, all Scripture is. And if, as has been 
proved, the inspiration of the Scriptures is verbal, all 
the canonical Scriptures are verbally inspired. This 
celebrated passage is fairly pleadable in support of that 
position. 

2. The Lord Jesus Christ taught the inspiration of 
all the Scriptures, which were canonical at the time of 
his ministry on earth. 

(1) He is the supreme Teacher of religious truth to 
the church and the world. All men are commanded by 
God to “hear him,” upon peril of eternal death. 

(2) He perfectly knew the canon of the Jewish Serip- 
tures. This, of course, is acknowledged by all but pro- 
nounced infidels. 


_ 


Tue PrincreLe or Source oF THEotoey. 343 


(3) He sanctioned the whole Jewish canon, and 
taught its inspiration. 

First. If that canon was not as a whole correct, or if 
any part of it was uninspired, he would have exposed its 
incorrectness as a whole, and pointed out the unauthori- 
tativeness of the uninspired part. If, on the supposi- 
tions made, he had not discharged that office, he would 
have been either ignorant, or culpable. To say either is 
to assail the foundations of the Christian religion, to 
discredit the gospel, and to treat with contempt the 
eternal hopes of men. 

Secondly. He expressly characterized all the canoni- 
eal Scriptures of the Jews by the singular and compre- 
hensive title, “the Scripture,” 7;ea¢7. Upon the ques- 
tion in hand this consideration is of the utmost import- 
ance. It possesses a fourfold significance. In the first 
place, the Saviour asserts the unity of the Old Testament 
Scriptures: all the sacred writings composed but one 
book — the writing, the Scripture. In the second place, 
he affirms the inspiration of every part of the Old 
Testament canon. If the Scripture, as a whole, cannot 
be broken — and such is our Lord’s declaration — that 
fact must have resulted from its divine inspiration. If 
this was true of the whole, it must have been true of 
every component part. If a chain cannot be broken, 
- every particular link must be unbreakable. In the third 
place, Christ affirms the verbal inspiration of the whole 
Scripture, and of every part. In the passage in which 
the words under consideration occur, he founds his 
argument against the objectors to his divinity upon 
certain words of a Psalm. This evinces his maintenance 


jae _ Discussions OF ‘THEotoctcaL Questions. 


of “eg verbal inspiration of that Psalm, and pari ratione 
of the Psalms. He adds, immediately after his citation 
of the words of a Psalm, “and the Scripture cannot be 
broken.” Jn this assertion he groups the Psalms, every 
Psalm, with the whole Scripture, and in affirming the 
verbal inspiration of the Psalms he affirms the verbal 
inspiration of the whole Scripture. Otherwise the words 
of the argument become unmeaning. In the fourth 
place, in the declaration, “The Scripture cannot be 
broken,” Jesus proclaims the irrefragable, indissoluble, 
authority of the whole Scripture and of every part of it. 
Why? Because it is of divine authority. How is that 
established? Because it is divinely inspired. The 
inspiration of the Scripture and of all its parts is clearly 
asserted. 

It may be objected that the inference is illegitimate 
from the inspiration of a single part to that of all the 
parts. The answer is easy. The argument is that no 
part of the Scripture can be broken, because the Serip- 
ture as a whole cannot be broken. If reduced to strict 
logical form it is, No Scripture can be broken; the 
eighty-second Psalm is a part of Scripture, therefore it 
cannot be broken. The argument holds good of every 
part of Scripture as well as of this particular part — the 
eighty-second Psalm; and Jesus included Moses and 
the prophets with the Psalms in the Scripture. The 
conclusion is obvious. 

In addition to this line of proof the fact is adduced 
that the Lord Jesus expressed the grand unity of the 
Scriptures by designating them as the Word of God. 
He charged the Pharisees with invalidating the Word of 





Tue PrincriPLe or Source or THEotoey. 345 


God — evidently meaning the Scriptures— by their 
traditional law, “Making the word of God of none effect 
through your tradition, which ye have delivered.” (Mark 
vil. 13.) If all the Scriptures are the Word of God, 
they are verbally inspired. The same predication must 
be made of every part. What is true of all must be true 
of each. Allusion has already been made to the opinion 
of a distinguished higher critic that it is improper to 
apply the title Word of God to the whole Scripture, but 
it should be assigned only to particular parts. One may 
be pardoned for preferring the authority of him who 
“spake as never man spake” to that of those who speak 
as men often speak. 

Thirdly. Our Saviour expressly acknowledged the 
divine authority and consequently the divine inspiration 
of the several books of the Jewish canon. 

In the first place, he did this by his compendious 
distribution of the Old Testament Scriptures into the 
law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms, in accord- 
ance with the accepted classification at the time when he 
spoke. “And he said unto them [his disciples assembled 
after-his resurrection], These are the words which I 
spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things 
must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of 
Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, con- 
cerning me.” (Luke xxiv. 44.) 

In the second place, he did the same by his references 
to the Scriptures of the Old Testament in general. 

Again and again he used the words with the solemnity 
of formulas, “Tt is written,” “Thus it is written.” 

In his unanswerable argument with the Pharisees in 


346 Discussions or THEroLocicaL Questions. 


proof of his divine commission, his last point was an 
appeal to the Scriptures. ‘Search the Scriptures; for 


‘in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they — 


which testify of me.” (John v. 39.) 

In his conversation with the disciples going to Em- 
maus he invoked the testimony of all the Scriptures to 
himself, “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, 
he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning himself.” (Luke xxiv. 27. See also Matt. 
xxvi. 54, 56.) 

He adduced the law and the prophets to silence the 
derision with which the Pharisees treated his claims, 
“The law and the prophets were until John: since that 
time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man 
presseth into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth 
to pass than one tittle of the law to fail.” (Luke xvi. 
16, 17.) Here it is evident that our Lord first uses the 
term law specifically as a member of the usual classifica- 
tion, and then employs it generically as synonymous with 
the Scriptures. Otherwise, in affirming the immuta- 
bility of the law specifically considered, he would have 
implicitly acknowledged the mutability of the prophets. 
Such a construction of his language the purport of his 
argument excludes. He asserts the unchanging perpe- 
tuity of the Scriptures in their minutest particulars. 
It merits especial notice just here that the very same 
thing is solemnly declared by the Lord Jesus of his own 
words, “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my 
words shall not pass away.” (Luke xxi. 33.) As the 
New Testament consists principally of reports, expo- 
sitions, inferential amplifications and historical devel- 





ee ee 


Tue PrincreLe or Source oF THEowocy. 347 


opments of his words, nay, is his Word communicated 
by inspiration to the sacred writers, it, according to the 
_ declaration of Christ, possesses with the Old Testament 
the unchangeableness of God’s veracity. Jesus affirms 
the immutable authority of the whole Scripture, Old 
and New, because it is the inspired Word of God. 

In the third place, the same thing is proved by the 
use which our Saviour made of particular books in the 
Old Testament Scriptures. 

In his argument with the Pharisees touching divorce 
he appeals to Genesis. “But from the beginning of the 
creation God made them male and female. For this 
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and 
cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh.” 
(Mark x. 6-8; Gen. i. 27; ii. 24.) He also cites the 
narrative in Genesis of the flood. (Matt. xxiv. 37-39.) 

In the Sermon on the Mount, he expounded the ten 
commandments, the record of which is in Exodus. Of 
the moral law, and of the prophets, he affirms immutable 
authority, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, 
or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” 
(Matt. v.17.) Had not the moral law, as the standard 
of justification, been exactly fulfilled by Christ, we could 
not be discharged from the obligation perfectly to obey 
it in that respect. In his argument with the Sadducees 
concerning the resurrection of the dead, which, in the 
judgment of the Pharisees, had silenced his opponents, 
he cited the words of the same book as of conclusive 
authority. (Ex. iii. 6, 15, 16.) 

Our Lord, as a man, conformed himself to the require- . 
ments of the ritual law contained in Leviticus and 


348 Discusstons or THEoLogrcaL Questions. 


Numbers. Sufficient importance has, perhaps, not been 
attached to this fact as evincing his acceptance of the 
inspired authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
But it must be specially noted that he expressly quotes 
Leviticus (Matt. xv. 4; Lev. xx. 9.) 

In the progress of his temptation by the devil in the 
desert, he employed the words of the Book of Dent- 
eronomy as a complete answer to the insidious sugges- 
tions of the great adversary. (Deut. viii. 3; vi. 13; 
x. 20.) There are, besides, other references which he 
made to the same book. 

It has thus been pointed out that our Lord endorsed 
the belief of the Jews in the inspired authority of the 
Pentateuch. 

Refuting the charge of the Pharisees that his disciples 
had violated the Sabbath by plucking corn on that day, 
he cited the act of David, approved by the high priest, 
as recorded in 1 Samuel, “Have ye not read what David 
did?’ (Matt. xii. 3.); and in Matt. xxiii. 35, he vir- 
tually attests the inspired accuracy of all the historical 
books which narrated events from the death of Abel to 
that of Zacharias, the son of Barachias. These books 
are charged with serious errors by the higher critics. 
The contrast of judgment is conspicuous. 

In Matt. xiii. 35 he expressly quotes David as a 
prophet, in Matt. xxi. 16 he cites Psa. viii., and in 
Matt. xxi. 42 he uses the words of Psa. exviii. It was 
previously shown that he employed the very words of 
Psa. Ixxxii. and Psa. ex. to clench his arguments, and 
now attention is called to the impressive fact that on the 
cross he used words from Psa. xxii. in making the most 





a 


i AP ee 


= 


Tue PrincieLe or Source oF TuHErotoey. 349 


affecting appeal to God that was ever uttered, “Eli, Eli, 
lama sabachthani?” — “My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me?” He also in his dying agonies ex- 
claimed, “I thirst,’ and tasted the vinegar offered him, 
in fulfilment of the prediction in Psa. lxix., “And in my 
thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” 

In the rebuke administered at the temple to the 
Pharisees and Sadducees for their profanation of that 
sacred edifice, he cited the words of Isaiah, with his 
usual formula, It is written, “Mine house shall be called 
an house of prayer.’ (Matt. xvi. 18; Isa. lvi. 7.) He 
took for the text of his memorable sermon at Nazareth 
the words of Isaiah, in which his anointing for his 
preaching office is so beautifully and sublimely por- 
trayed, and in regard to which he said, “This day is this 
Seripture fulfilled in your ears.” (Luke iv. 16-21; Isa. 
lxi. 1, 2.) In Matt. xiii. 14, and xv. 7, 8, he quotes the 
prophecy of Isaiah. 

It is more than probable that in the words reported 
in Matt. xv. 24, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel,” he cited, or at least referred to 
Ezekiel xxxiv. © 

In his discourse to his disciples concerning the last 
things, he quotes Daniel as an inspired prophet, whose 
prediction in regard to the temple at Jerusalem would 
certainly be fulfilled, “When ye therefore shall see the 
abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the 
prophet stand in the holy place.” (Matt. xxiv. 15.) 

He twice quoted the prophet Hosea. (Matt. xii. 7 and 
Hosea vi. 6.) 

He assigned to the prophet Jonah a singular eminence 


350 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL Questions. 


as the only sign that would be given to the contemporary 


generation who denied his divine commission as the © 


Messiah, and by the extraordinary significance which 


resurrection, stamped his approval of a narrative which 
has furnished occasion for the cheap ridicule of blas- 
phemous witlings. (Matt. xii. 39, 40; xvi. 4.) 

He recognized the inspired authority of the prophet 
Malachi in his prediction touching the coming of Elijah. 
(Matt. xvii. 10-12; xi. 14; Mal. iv. 5, 6.) 

It has thus with some care been proved that our 
adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ authoritatively 
confirmed the belief of the Jews in the inspiration of 
their canonical books. It may be said that the enumera- 


tion is not complete —that there are Old Testament 


writers to whom he did not specially refer. It is suffi- 
cient to reply that his endorsement of those enumerated 
guaranteed that of all, since were the others not of 
inspired authority, and therefore not entitled toa place 
in the canon, he would, as the true and faithful Teacher 


of his church, have admonished her of the fact, and. 


put her on her guard against false pretenders to inspira- 
tion. But, further, it has been proved that he confirmed 
the classification by the Jewish church of her canonical 
books, grouped all the Scriptures into unity under the 
compendious designation of the Scripture, and under 
the title of the Scriptures set his seal upon all her sacred, 
authoritative writings. 


The argument might properly be arrested at this — 


point. The authority of Jesus Christ, the revealer of 
God’s will, the great Prophet of the church, the very 


7 






a 


ee 


he attributed to him as a type of his own death and — 


a ee 


THE PrRiIncrieLE or SourcE oF THEotoay. 351 
a 


source of all inspiration, ought to be decisive with those 
who revere his name. But the testimony of the New 
Testiment writers, partaking as they did of the same 
inspiring Spirit with their Master (Acts i. 2, 5), will 
also be briefly adduced. And let it be borne in mind 
that the special question now before us is with reference 
to the extent of inspiration as to its scope: Does it belong 
to all the books of the canonical Scriptures ? 

3. The writers of the New Testament bear the same 
testimony with Christ to the inspired authority of all 
the Scriptures. ; 

(1) Other books than those expressly recognized by 
the Lord Jesus are attested to by them: the number of 
endorsed Old Testament writings is increased. These 
books are, Joshua (Heb. iv., xi.), Judges (Heb. xi.), 
Kings (James v.), Proverbs (Heb. xii.), Jeremiah 
(Matt. ii., Heb. x.), Joel (Acts ii.), Micah (Matt. ii.), 
Haggai (Heb. xii.), Zechariah (Matt. xxi. xxvi.). 
Amos is quoted in the great speech of Stephen, who was 
not a New Testament writer, it is true, but was in all 
probability inspired in the delivery of that speech. 
Certainly, he was “full of the Holy Ghost,’ and received 
a remarkable, miraculous attestation from the glorified 
Saviour. The allegation of the book of Joshua may be 
objected to. But in the passage to which reference is 
made (Heb. iv.) the writer says, “For if Joshua had 
given them rest, then would he [God] not afterward 
have spoken of another day.” That subsequent speaking 
was in the book of Psalms, which is thus distinguished 
from the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua in which 
the first speaking is recorded. 





352 ae or THEOLOGICAL Questions. 


(2) The New Peeeiecnt writers attest the inspira- 
tion of most of the books endorsed by Christ. It would — 
be tedious to give the references. Through inadvertence — 
the enumeration here given may not be complete, but 
we have seen that those acknowledged by Christ and the 
New Testament writers are, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 
Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
Kings, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel 
(probably), Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Micah, Haggai, 
Zechariah and Malachi. Amos was attested to by 
Stephen. As the Jewish canon was made up, and there 
was no construction of one by Christ and the writers of 
the New Testament, but, on the contrary, the reception 
by them of the existing one, the maxim by no means 
holds here, Hxpressio unius est exclusio alterius. But 
the express attestation of so many books of the Jewish 
canon was the virtual attestation of all. Had those not 
specifically mentioned been uninspired, they would have 
been explicitly excluded from approbation. 

(3) A special line of argument previously employed 
in relation to Christ’s teachings holds good here — the 
New Testament writers collect all the books of the Jew- 
ish canon under general and comprehensive and unifying 
titles. They speak of them as the law, the prophets, the 
law and the prophets, the Scriptures, the holy Serip- 
tures, the oracles of God, and above all as the Scripture, 
the Word of God. It is not necessary again to press the 
argument. The fact is signalized. 

4, The previous argument in favor of the verbal in- 
spiration of the New Testament Scriptures goes far to 
prove the inspiration of all of them. No elaborate rea- 


Tue Prrincipte or Source or THEotoey. 353 


_ soning will be employed upon that. subject. The ques- 


tion of the inspiration of all the New Testament writings 


is really the question of the canon of the New Testament, 


and that is not here under special discussion. But the 
proposition is laid down, without fear of successful con- 
tradiction, that all the canonical Scriptures of the New 
Testament are inspired. Whatever New Testament 
Scriptures are canonical are entitled to that rank pre- 
cisely because they are inspired. No other than an 
inspired writing could be canonical. 

There are two grounds, based in historical evidence, 
upon which, to my mind, the question of the canon was 
settled. The first is, that all the New Testament writers 
were apostles, with the exception of Mark and Luke; 
that the apostles were inspired men; that their claim 
to apostleship and inspiration was incontestably proved 
by miracles; and that these miraculous credentials were 
perfectly known by the apostolic church. Who, in that 
church, could, with any shadow of just reason, doubt 


that Matthew and John, Paul, James and Peter were 


apostles of our Lord? Who could dispute the patent 
fact of the miraculous credentials by which they proved 
their claims to the apostolic office, and the inspiration 
attaching to it? Claims, I say, for there were many who 
were endued with miraculous gifts, but few only claimed 
to be on an equality with the apostles, and their pre 
sumptuous pretensions were soon silenced by miraculous 
interventions which were observable by all. The only 
question, then, when a writing professed to emanate 
from an apostle, was, Is it genuine; that is, produced 


by the apostle himself? or, Is it a forgery ? 
23 


354 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


The second ground is, that the means of determining 
the genuineness or spuriousness of a reputed apostolic 
writing were easily available and indubitably certain. 
Allusion is not now made to those marks by which the 
personality of the writer might be recognized — indi- 
vidual peculiarities of style, personal references, notices 
of incidents, reminiscences of past intercourse, and the 
like; although it has pleased God, in his infinite wisdom, 
to co-act in inspiration with the free play of the human 
faculties, and by this very instrumentality to preserve 
the church from the danger of deception. All these con- 
siderations aside, important as they may be, there is one 
which is absolutely decisive. It is that the apostles out- 
lived their own writings, and consequently they were 

proved to be genuine by their own personal testimony. 
How easy, in case a spurious writing purporting to 
come from an apostle was foisted upon the church, would 
it have been for him to suppress it as a forgery! How 
easy? How important, how necessary would it have 
been ! 

Upon these two grounds, then, the primitive church 
was competent to settle, and must have settled, the ques- 
tion of the canon. Was any writing apostolic? It was, 
therefore, inspired. Was it inspired? It was, there 
fore, necessarily of canonical authority. Inspiration was 
the canon, the rule, by which a writing was to be tested. 
If inspired, it was placed in the chureh’s list of canonical 
Scriptures. 

The case of Mark and Luke can give no trouble, They 
were vouched for by the apostles themselves. The 


- 


4 


Tue PRINCIPLE OR SouRCE OF THEOLOGY. 355 


apostles attested their writings to be of inspired author- 
ity. That was sufficient. 

The judgment of the church contemporary with the 
apostles and immediately succeeding them ought, upon 
this question, to be conclusive. All the Scriptures which 
it deemed canonical are inspired, and if inspired, then, 
if the preceding argument is, true, verbally inspired. 

To us, living in this distant age, it pleased God, in 
merciful condescension to our necessities, to afford addi- 
tional and confirming proof of the plenary inspiration 
of “the holy Scripture,” by “the heavenliness of the 
matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the 
style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole 
(which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery 
it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many 
other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfec- 
tion thereof ;” and to impart “full persuasion and assur- 
ance of the infallible truth, and divine authority 
thereof,” by “the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bear- 
ing witness by and with the word in our hearts.” 1 The 
Jewish church, with the confirming approval of Christ, 
and the early Christian church with that of the apostles, 
decided the question, what writings are inspired Scrip- 
ture, but the Scriptures themselves attest their divine 
origin, their authority, and their saving efficacy by their 
own internal evidence, and the witness of the Holy 
Ghost. In these respects holy Scripture “dependeth not 
upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly 
upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; and 

* Westminster Conf. of Faith, Chap. I., Sec. V. 


356 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIoNs. 


therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of 
God.” 

The testimony of the Jewish church and of the early 
Christian church in regard to the question of the canon 
— that is, What is the inspired Word of God? — is of 
the highest presumptive value; but it rises to a vastly 
greater significance, it amounts to the certainty of au- 
thoritativeness, in view of the fact — too little insisted 
upon — that it was confirmed by the testimony of Christ 
and the apostles. 

There yet remains the consideration of prominent 
objections to the doctrine of verbal inspiration. Before 
closing the discussion, in its positive aspects, of the 
nature, the relations, and the extent of inspiration, some 
remarks will be succinctly made about its bearing upon 
the rationalistic positions of the higher criticism. It 
hardly needs to be said, after the proofs which have been 
furnished that the inspiration of the Scriptures is not 
merely ad sensum, but also ad verbum, that the strictures 
upon the higher criticism will be passed upon it from 
that point of view. If this standard of judgment is 
refused and denounced, let the argument, in favor of 
the verbal inspiration of the original manuscripts — 
derived from the uniform and unimpeachable testimony 
of the Scriptures themselves, as well as from other 
sources — be clearly disproved. The exposure of varia- 
tions and even positive mistakes in copies and transla- 
tions amounts to nothing, against the positive proof of 
the integrity of the original text. 

1. If inspiration was verbal, it was obviously different 
from the illuminating and sanctifying influence of the 


Tue Princrete on Source oF THEoLtoey. 357 


Holy Spirit, and from the piety which is its effect. 
This has, one knows not how many times, been pointed 
out. The higher critics, under a specious coloring, 
revamp an old, false, oft-exploded hypothesis, which has 
ever been regarded by the true church of God as “a foul 
disfigurement and burden.” They canonize Balaam 
and Caiaphas, and exalt them to a place in the gallery 
of illustrious saints. That they were inspired has been 
universally acknowledged ; that they were pious it would 
task the acute ingenuity and the superior scholarship 
of the higher critics to show. That when inspired they 
“spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” was true, 
but that they were holy men of God, it would be some- 
what difficult to prove. If exalted piety and inspiration 
be the same, it is hard to see why the writings of 
Augustine and Luther should not have been added to 
the canon of the Christian Scriptures. Alas! the recan- 
tations of the celebrated father, and the extravagances 
of the distinguished reformer, stood in the way. They 
were not inspired men. Balaam and Caiaphas, when 
inspired, were infallible; Augustine and Luther, being 
uninspired, were not. The former spoke with the in- 
errancy of God’s thoughts and words, the latter with 
the inaccuracy of their own. 

2. In the light of the proofs which have been advanced 
we see that inspiration is not, as the higher critics con- 
tend, merely an afflatus which is, as some imply, a 
“spiritual insight” or “intuition,” or, as others hold, 
causes it and intensifies it. 

“Without,” says Dr. Driver, “pretending to define 
inspiration, or to determine the mystery of its operation, 


358 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


we may, I suppose, say that what we mean by it is an 
influence which gave to those who received it a unique 
and extraordinary spiritual insight, enabling them 
thereby, without superseding or suppressing the human 
faculties, but rather using them as its instruments, to 
declare in different degrees, and in accordance with the 
needs or circumstances of particular ages or particular 
occasions, the mind and purpose of God. Every true 
and noble thought of man is indeed, in a sense, inspired 
of God; but with the biblical writers the purifying and 
illuminating Spirit must have been present in some 
special and exceptional measure.” 1 In the first place, 
we are informed that inspiration produces spiritual 
insight. Nothing is said of what is demanded by the 
profound spiritual necessities of mankind — infalli- 
bility in teaching. An insight into “the mind and pur- 
pose of God” is indeed conceded, but what guarantee is 
furnished for the inerrant communication of that will 
and purpose? None. The inspiration of the words in 
which God’s will and purpose were to be declared, in 
addition to the spiritual insight, was necessary to afford 
that guarantee. In the second place, this spiritual 
insight, we are told, although unique and extraordinary 
differs only in degree from the inspiration of every true 
and noble thought of man. The inspiration is the same, 
the measure of its influence different. What, we may 
ask, is the quality which differentiates one degree of 
inspiration from the other? Is it certainty? Is it 
infallibility? No; it is only a deeper and clearer 


1Sermons: On Inspiration, p. 147. 


Tue PRINCIPLE oR Source oF THEOLOGY. 359 


spiritual insight. One inspired in the highest degree 
sees the truth more vividly than another, but he does 
not teach it with an infallibility that does not belong 
to the other. Of such inspiration of the Scriptures, they 
give not the slightest hint. Was Balaam, under the 
“purifying and illuminating” influence of the Spirit, 
gifted with a unique and extraordinary spiritual insight, 
and led to truer and nobler thoughts than those he 
usually experienced, true and noble as they were? It 
is perfectly manifest that the scriptural idea of inspira- 
tion is very different from that of these learned critics. 
That is sufficient to convict them of error, in the very 
attempt they make to fasten error upon the Scriptures. 
The critics represent inspiration as an exciting, the 
Scriptures as a didactic influence. Holy men were 
moved, say the critics; holy men spake as they were 
moved, say the Scriptures. None but holy men were 
moved by the inspiring influence, say the critics; some 
unholy men were moved by it, say the Scriptures. 


Nore.—Just here in the prosecution of this writing, a terrific 
storm came on from sea. The works of man went down before it, 
some houses were wrecked, break-waters, except those of solid 
masonry, were crushed like egg-ehells; wharves were torn to 
pieces, and some lives were lost. While yet the tail-end of the 
gale is cracking like a thousand wagon-whips, and the infuriated 
sea is pitching against the shore, and sending its spray, like dis- 
charges of shot, far up the streets, I resume this humble attempt, 
in conjunction with the abler labors of dear brethren in Christ, 
to oppose the onset of a more fearful tempest which is threatening 
the faith of the church and the eternal hopes of men. If the 
plenary inspiration of the Bible goes down, all is lost with it. 


Mr. PLEASANT, 8. C., August 28, 1893. 


360 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QuEsTIoNs. 


3. The doctrine of the plenary, verbal inspiration of 
the Scriptures overthrows the evolutionary theory of 
revelation advocated by the higher critics. Applying 
to the Scriptures the unverified hypothesis of evolution, 
with its baseless pretension to be an established con- 
clusion of science, they hold, that the Hebrews emerged 
from a rude and semi-savage condition; that the 
“national religion of Israel” sprang from atomic reli- 
gious germs; that in the development of this religion, 
in consequence of the gradual expansion of the “religious 
idea,” there resulted ever increasing attempts to formu- 
late in writing the religious beliefs of the people; that 
these registrations, historical, legal, doctrinal, existed 
in fragmentary form until near the time of the exile, 
when they begun to be collected, edited, and redacted ( !) 
into the symmetry of a harmonious whole by writers 
who were gifted with an “extraordinary spiritual in- 
sight” for the discharge of this great literary(!) work; 
and that this work was carried on and complemented by 
post-exilic writers. Hence their Elohistic and Jehovistie 
documents, and their Mosaic compilations, their Jeho- 
vist, Deuteronomist, and priestly codifiers, their Esdrine 
Torah, and their prophetical ethics. 

This is not the place to discuss these views at length. 
It is only intended to show that this tissue of ingenious 
sophistry, decked out in the ostentatious feathers of 
reputed learning, this whole rationalistic and infidel 
speculation, is destroyed at one blow by the scriptural 
truth of verbal inspiration. This is not rash declama- 
tion. The doctrine of verbal inspiration has been estab- 





Tue PrincreLe or Source oF THEotoey. 361 


lished upon an elaborate induction of scriptural testi- 
monies. The Old Testament writers, Christ and the 
New Testament writers, have all been summoned to the 
witness-stand, and they testify against these speculators. 

They may reply that the Old Testament writers were 
~ errant, and so were those of the New Testament when 
they reported the discourses and sayings of Christ. 
These critics, however, cannot be mistaken; their inves- 
tigations have been too thorough, their scholarship is too 
exact, their learning too complete. They are more in- 
errant than the sacred writers. The church universal 
has been duped. We are willing that the case go to the 
jury upon these respective testimonies. 

But if the doctrine of verbal inspiration is true, there 
is no truth in their hypothesis of the evolutionary de 
velopment of religion and revelation. It is not true that 
the religious ideas of the Hebrew people gradually 
expanded and grew by the inherent force of develop- 
ment. The hypothesis contradicts the express state- 
ments of scriptural history; and if that history cannot 
be appealed to, what history flave these critics to appeal 
to? What? There can be no answer but: the history 
of their own speculations. They do not believe history, 
even inspired history; they possess so exceptional and 
extraordinary a spiritual insight, their religious intui- 
tion is so clear, that they make history, they see, in 
retrospective vision, the facts which constituted it. They 
profess to have the power of “constructing” it. They 
know better than Moses and the other sacred historians 
what ought to have been the facts. Marvellous his- 


’ 


362 Discussions or TuEroLoercat Questions. 


torians! They at least enjoy the distinguished honor of 
originality, in conceiving and proclaiming the theory of 
the Back-action of History. 
There is no truth, it is repeated, in their hypothesis 
of the evolutionary development of religion and revela- 
tion. The sacred records show us — and there are no 
other records to show us anything about the matter, 
except the records of rationalistie folly —the sacred 
records show us that when, in consequence of a dissolu- 
tionary development, to follow Mr. Spencer’s phrase, 
the Israelites gravitated continually to degeneration of 
faith and practice, it pleased God “at sundry times and 
in divers manners” supernaturally to intervene by reve- 
lations, verbal revelations, of his will. By these he 
corrected their false views and taught them the truth. 
By them he rebuked their sins and exhorted them to * 
repentance. The evolutionary development was by God 
himself of his own plan of redemption. By these super- 
natural accretions to his sovereignty furnished revela- 
tions of his will, accompanied by such measures of his 
saving grace as he was pleased to impart, the people were 
preserved from total spiritual apostasy, just as by the 
supernatural interpositions of his providence they were 
ever and anon delivered from complete temporal de 
struction. If this is not so, if the supposition of the- 
critics be true, how happened it that this evolution of 
religion developed first into the Israelitish, and subse- 
quently into the Judean captivity — judgments visited 
upon the people for their incorrigible persistence in 
idolatry and every form of sin? How happened it, that 


s 


Tur Principe or Source or Turotoey. 363 


after the providential restoration of the Jews from 
Babylon, and new revelations of God’s will to them, 
this evolution of religion developed into their rejection 
and crucifixion of their Messiah and Redeemer, and 
their dispersion to the ends of the earth? It is evident 
that revelation precedes religion, and is designed to 
supply its type and model, whether the actual corres- 
pondence of religion to revelation be realized or not. 
The parts of the Bible were successively added by super- 
natural, verbal inspiration of men selected by God to be 
the media through which he communicated an objective 
religion, a norm of faith and a pattern for the subjective 
life of the soul. Nothing is more untrue than that 
subjective religion preceded the inspired Scriptures, and 
that they were its formulated result. In short, the Bible 
is God-breathed, not man-inspired; and true inward 
religion is God-given, not man-evolved. 

Of course, the doctrine of verbal inspiration is a flat 
contradiction to the whole figment of the late collecting, 
editing and revising of the books attributed to Moses. 
Christ and the apostles say that Moses wrote them. 
They had been written by Moses, as verbally inspired 
of God, and had been known as authoritative, long before 
Ezra was born. ‘This is assertion, it will be said. Yes, 
it is God’s assertion in his holy Word. They who deny 
it, charge him with error. What God said to Moses, 
Moses said to the people; and this was not only orally 
said, but written. Christ declared that “Moses wrote.” 
The record, therefore, of what Moses said was produced 
by Moses himself. Otherwise the New Testament 


364 Discussions or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


writers were untrue. Let the critics face the issue, if 
they will. No respecter of the Scriptures will sit with 
them “in the seat of the scornful.” 

4. Orthodox writers admit that there is a divine ele- 
ment and a human element in inspiration; and this is 
insisted upon by the higher critics. This position ought 
to be guarded against the supposition that these two 
elements are codrdinate. Far from it. The divine 
element is the controlling one, the human element only 
instrumental. It is the subordinate medium through 
which the divine inspiration acts. God inspires, man 
is inspired. 

5. I close this section of the discussion with the remark 
that in this controversy the chief contest is in regard to 
verbal inspiration. To assign that question a place of 
minor importance is to give way before the higher 
critics and other assailants of the plenary inspiration of 
the Scriptures. Here is the citadel, and the principal 
weapons by which it is defended are miracles. Some 
of the reviewers of the newer criticism fail to see this. 
“Just because,” observes Dr. Robertson, of Glasgow, 
“the issues in this controversy are so far-reaching, is it 
necessary to meet the critical view on its own ground, 
and to examine the foundation on which it rests. Ques- 
tions are involved that lie much deeper than those of the 
verbal inspiration or the so-called ‘inerrancy’ of Serip- 
ture. It seems to me vain to talk of the inspiration and 
authority of books till we are sure that they are credible 
and honest compositions, giving us a firm historical 
basis on which to rest. My whole argument has been to 
show that, examined by the light which they themselves 


Tue PrincrpLe on Source oF THEotoey. 365 


furnish, these books are trustworthy documents; that 
the compositions which are undoubted and accepted give 
their testimony to those that are questioned or rejected ; 
that the books as they lie before us, so far as they can be 
tested by the only tests in our possession, and making all 
allowance for the ordinary conditions of human com- 
position and transmission of books, give us a fair and 
eredible account of what took place in the history and 
religious development of Israel. If that point be 
allowed to be in a fair way established, I leave the 
argument for inspiration and authority to take care of 
itself.” 1 

I would not, in the slightest degree, underrate the 
valuable labors of the learned professor in his own 
chosen department of inquiry. He has ably met the 
critics on their own ground. But it is seldom wise to 
permit an enemy to select his own ground, if it can be 
avoided. Especially is it unwise to leave our own ad- 
vantageous position. I am persuaded that, so far as the 
main issue is concerned, the judgment of the professor 
is a profound mistake — namely, that the question of 
the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures must be 
postponed to that of their credibility. On the contrary, 
as has been already contended, the sort of credibility of 
the Scriptures which is imperatively required, the credi- 
bility which guarantees certainty and infallibility, is 
founded exactly upon their inspiration. We are not 
defending professedly human records. Were that the 
case we would, of course, be content with proving human 
eredibility. We are defending professedly divine 


* Early Religion of Israel, p. 489. 


866 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


records, and we can be satisfied with nothing short of 
divine credibility. Are they divine? They are divinely 
credible. To prove that they are divine we must prove 
their inspiration. He, then, who addresses himself to 
the question of the inspiration of the Scriptures “takes,” 
as Luther said to Erasmus about free will, “the bull by 
the horns.” If we can rout the enemy on the field where 
he is camped, well! But it is better to draw him to our 
own field, and join battle with him from our own 
entrenched lines. Let us look at the matter a little 
further. 

(1) What is the great end of the contest? It is to 
prove the divine, and consequently, infallible and 
supreme authority of the Bible as the only rule of faith 
and duty. What is the great means to that end? It is 
to prove the inspiration of the Bible. And no other 
inspiration secures to us the attainment of the great end 
but verbal inspiration. No other affords complete 
security against fallibility. That point will not again 
be argued. 

(2) In view of this end, what would be gained by the 
proof of the authenticity and credibility of the saered 
records, if that proof did not furnish unimpeachable 
ground for faith in the verbal inspiration of the Serip- 


tures? What we want is an absolutely inerrant stan- _ 


dard. Any sort of inspiration, in general, will not 
answer. We must have the fullest inspiration, or some 
errancy is not excluded. While, then, in order that we 
may appeal to the testimony of the Scriptures to their 
own inspiration, we must prove their credibility as a 
witness, the proof of that credibility only rises to the 


Tuer Principle or Source oF TuEonoay. 367 


highest value when it grounds belief in verbal inspira- 
tion. 

(3) Miracles prove inspiration — first the inspiration 
of certain men and then as a consequence the inspiration 
of their writings. Miracles prove inspiration directly, 
not merely through the credibility of the Scriptures. 
Further, the proof from miracles, be it observed first, 
did not, and does not depend upon the credibility of the 
inspired teachings, but the credibility of those teachings 
depended upon their inspiration; secondly, the miracu- 
lous proof does not wholly found upon the testimony of 
the Scriptures. In the first instance, it grounded con- 
fidence in the inspired men who spoke orally for God, 
and produced the Scriptures. How, then, could the 
credibility of the writings have “preceded” the inspira- 
tion of the writers, and their own existence? In the 
second instance, that is, of the uninspired ever after, of 
ourselves among them, the miraculous proof does not 
wholly found upon the testimony of the Scriptures to 
the fact of the miracles. The evidence in support of the 
fact —the actual occurrence —of miracles, is, for 
example, also derived from the fulfilment of prophecy, 
some of it contemporaneous with ourselves, and from 
the vast, rich region of religious experience. 

(4) It is assumed, strangely assumed, by even some 
orthodox writers that errors in the Scriptures as now 
possessed by us would disprove the trustworthiness, and, 
therefore, the inspiration of the Scriptures. There are 
errors in the Scriptures as we now have them, either as 
copies or versions, minify them as we may. The case of 
plenary inspiration would be gone against us, if that 


3868 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 
al 

were all. Were it possible to prove the existence of 
errors in the original manuscripts, it would be true that 
the trustworthiness of the Scriptures would be disproved. 
It is, however, a fatal infatuation which prompts the 
admission, that the existence of errors in the Scriptures 
as we now have them would impair the plenary inspira- 
tion and consequent trustworthiness of the original doeu- 
ments — that errors in copies and translations infer 
errors in the autographs. The concession is utterly 
unjustifiable. Miracles proved the inspiration of the 
sacred writers. Their writings, therefore, as they came 
from their hands, must have been inerrant. We affirm 
the absolute inerrancy of those writings; and our affirm- 
ation is sustained by the whole strain and tenor of the 
Scriptures as we have them. What proof, on the other 
hand, counteractive to this, can be produced to establish 
their errancy? The proof from miracles for plenary 
inspiration is of the very highest degree of importance. 
Miracles, Miracles, Mrractes! Here the battle rages” r 
in its hottest fury. See the wrath against them of 
Hume, Strauss and all sections of pantheists, ration- 
alists, and anti-supernaturalists of every grade! This . 
is the field on which they array their most formidable 
forces, and exert their utmost vigor. This aspect of the 
subject must be treated in a separate discussion. 

Something must now be said concerning the question, 
Are translations inspired? The position is here taken 
that so far as a translation faithfully represents the 
original Scriptures, it is characterized by the same 
inspiration with them. If it exactly coincides with 
the original as to matter, it is substantially the same 


Tue P RINCIPLE oR Source OF THEOLOGY. 369 


with it. So far as it deviates from the original, it ceases 
to be inspired. To say, then, without qualification, that 
no translation is inspired is erroneous and injurious. 
The truth is that a good translation is partly inspired 
and partly uninspired — inspired to the extent of its 
reproduction of the original, uninspired to the extent 
of its variation from it. Such I believe to be the case 
with the English Bible. And, further, I believe it to be 
for by far the greatest part, indeed for almost the whole 
of it, inspired. In the main, it faithfully represents the 
original Scriptures. But the translation was effected by 
fallible men, and therefore contains some errors. Only 
to that extent is it uninspired. This view I found con- 
firmed by Trench in his work on the Authorized Ver- 
sion. 

“We must,” says the Archbishop, “never leave out of 
sight that for a great multitude of readers the English 
Version is not the translation of an inspired book, but is 
itself the inspired book. And so far, of course, as it is a 
perfectly adequate counterpart of the original, this is 
true; since the inspiration is not limited to those He- 
brew or Greek words in which the divine message was 
first committed to men, but lives on in whatever words 
are a faithful and full representation of these, to the 
extent of their adequacy. There, and there only, where 
any divergence exists between the original and the copy, 
the copy is less inspired than the original — in fact, is 
not inspired at all.” 

There is a necessary distinction to be maintained 
between the translation and the translators. The trans- 


lators were uninspired men, and consequently liable to 
24 


370 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


mistakes; the translation is inspired, so far as it exactly 
gives the original — so far, no more. 

This would seem to be obvious in regard to the matter 
of Scripture. As to the inspiration of the words, I am 
disposed to hold the following view: It must be granted 
that the words of a version are not, a few excepted, the 
very words of the original. So far, then, as the literal 
form of the original words and the translating is con- 
cerned, one cannot say that the translation is verbally 
inspired. The words of the version are not the very 
words which were suggested to the mind of the inspired 
writers by the Holy Ghost. In this sense, and to this 
extent, verbal inspiration cannot be predicated of a 
translation. But the words of a version may, as symbols, 
represent precisely the same ideas, the same things, as 
those expressed by the corresponding words of the origi- 
nal. I would, therefore, say that when that condition 
is fulfilled, the words of the translation possess an 
equivalent inspiration with those of the original. The 
Hebrew, Greek, and English words for the divine being 
exactly signify the same idea. The English word, when 
used in the Bible, has consequently an inspiration equiv- — 
alent to that of the Hebrew and Greek words. As to 
letters and form, the words are different, as to signifi- 
eance they are the same. 

The utterance ought not to be made without qualifica- 
tion that translations of the Scriptures are uninspired. 
I agree with Trench in holding to the inspiration of the 
English Bible. 


THe PrINcIPLE or Source oF TuEoLogy. 371 


OBJECTIONS TO THE VERBAL INSPIRATION OF THE 
ScrRIPTURES. 


Many of the objections which are urged against verbal 
inspiration are at the same time offered to the plenary 
inspiration of the thoughts, the sense, of the Scrip- 
tures. If we separate the two classes of objection by a 
strict logical analysis, we shall find that those which lie 
against verbal inspiration peculiarly are very few. 

1. It is objected, as by Mr. Morell, that the theory of 
verbal dictation supposes a two-fold inspiration: one 
which influenced the minds and hearts of the persons 
inspired, and one which indited their words. Of these 
the first only is requisite and provable, the second un- 
necessary and incapable of positive proof. To this it is 
answered : 

(1) This is an arbitrary and untenable distinction. 
It is assumed that there is no difference between inspira- 
tion and sanctification. But it has been already seen, 
in the analysis of the nature of inspiration, that these 
two things are quite different. The single fact that 
wicked men, like Balaam, were inspired is enough to 
refute the position. 

But if it be shown that inspiration, instead of being 
sanctification, is an influence exerted in order to secure 
infallibility of teaching, the objections are dissipated 
which are founded upon the supposition of their 
identity. For example, proceeding upon that unwar- 
rantable assumption, some writers have cited Paul’s 
rebuke of Peter at Antioch as a disproof of verbal 


372 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


inspiration. It is assumed that Paul reproved Peter 
for officially teaching error. There is no proof of this. 
All that is proved is that Peter was a partially sanctified 
man, and that, on the occasion adverted to, he erred in 
conduct. The apostle as a man, and the same apostle as 
an inspired teacher cannot be regarded as subject to the 
same predication. Paul himself, on another occasion, in 
all probability gave way to intemperate anger in his 
dispute with Barnabas. He erred not as an apostle, but 
as an imperfectly sanctified man. 

(2) The assertion, that no positive evidence can be 
produced in favor of verbal inspiration, has been abun- 
dantly disproved by the argument already presented. 
To that argument I must refer, in order to avoid need- 
less repetition. There positive proofs were furnished 
with almost tedious particularity — proofs numerous 
and cogent enough to satisfy any fair and unprejudiced 
seeker for the truth. And there, also, attention was 
challenged to the fact that no proofs could be brought 
forward against the verbal inspiration of the original 
manuscripts. 

9. It is objected, that the doctrine of verbal inspira- 
tion is inconsistent with the plain fact that the saered 
writers possessed peculiarities of style which distin- 
guished them from one another. 

(1) This objection is grounded in an assumption 
which cannot be substantiated, namely, that the Al 
mighty God has not the power to dictate the words in 
which he designs to express his will without destroying 
the peculiar styles of utterance which belong to indi- 


1 ayévero ody mapo&vapds, Acts xv. 39. 





Tue PrinciPLe or Source oF THEoLoay. 373 


vidual speakers or writers, and reducing them to a rigid 
-uniformity. The only conceivable way in which the 
proof of this assumption could be attempted would be to 
show that the opposite supposition involves an impos- 
sibility, since it must be admitted by all theists that 
God can do everything that is not impossible. If such 
an attempt were essayed, it must be shown that the 
alleged fact of verbal inspiration implies either a moral 
or a natural impossibility. 

It is conceded that it is impossible for God to act 
inconsistently with his moral perfections. The strength 
of Israel is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of 
man that he should repent. But surely it cannot be 
successfully evinced that the alleged fact of verbal in- 
spiration implies God’s inconsistency with his moral 
character. There is, to my mind, but one mode in which 
it is conceivable that such an effort would be made, and 
that is by showing that God would deceive men by pro- 
ducing upon their minds the impression that the words 
of the sacred speakers or writers which were his were not 
really his, but theirs. This attempt would be estopped 
by the simple consideration that inspired men, while 
delivering the words as emanating from them, at the 
same time declared that they are the words of God. 
Deception is out of the question. 

It is equally impracticable to prove that the alleged 
fact of verbal inspiration involves a natural impossi- 
bility. Without an enumeration of the cases in which 
such impossibility exists, only two facts will be men- 
tioned which go to show that verbal inspiration cannot 
be assigned to that category. 


374 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


The first is, that it is perfectly competent for men, 
limited as are their powers, to express their thee 


different styles. A speaker, addressing an illitera 
unintelligent audience, employs a style which he would 
not use in communicating the very same ideas to a 
cultivated assembly. This, owing to cireumstances, he 
may do statedly, and thus accustom himself to the em- 
ployment of two parallel, but entirely different styles 
of address. One writing to a child in regard to religious 
interests of the greatest importance would invoke a 
totally different style from one which he would make the 
vehicle of the same thoughts to a divine or a philosopher. 
The inference is obvious. If this is possible to man, 
why should it be regarded as impossible to God? If the 
finite being is able to vary his style, why should the 
necessity be imposed upon the infinite being of confine- 
ment to one of fixed uniformity? The things is absurd. 

Further, a teacher, impressing his thoughts upon those 
who are themselves in turn to become teachers of others, 
may employ styles of instruction adapted to their dif- 
ferent grades of intelligence and education, and so 
stamp them upon their minds, as to lead to their respee- 
tive use of them, the higher and the lower, in the free 
utterance of their thoughts — thoughts derived from 
their instructor and now become their own. The analogy 
is not perfect, but it avails to show that what man is in 
some measure competent to do, God can in a far higher 
degree accomplished. : 

The second fact — already to some extent insisted 
upon in the preceding discussion — has a more direct 
bearing upon the case in hand. It is a practical instance 





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% 


Tur PrincrpLe or Source or TuHEotocy. 375 


of the possibility, or rather the actuality, of that against 


which an antecedent impossibility is asserted. Even 
God, it is affirmed, cannot verbally inspire men without 
invading their peculiar style of expression. Now, is 
there a case in which this has been done, and so done as 
to induce conviction in the minds of those who admit the 
truthfulness of the sacred records? Such an instance 
existed in the speaking of foreign tongues by the apos- 
tles. Concede the credibility of the account, and it is 
clear that the words were miraculously given them; and 
that they preached to the multitude in languages other 
than their own vernacular, nay, that these Galileans 
addressed the Jews in the native dialect of the latter. 
It is curious what a number of hypotheses have been 
devised by the rationalists of modern times to explain 
away this prodigious miracle. But the record is too 
explicit to afford them any countenance. Meyer, whose 
views of inspiration are not by any means marked by 
orthodox rigor, after noticing these hypotheses, thus 
expresses in italics his own conclusion, “It results be- 
yond all doubt that Luke intended to narrate nothing 
else than this: the persons possessed by the Spirit began 
to speak in languages which were foreign to thew na- . 
tionality instead of their mother tongue, namely, in the 
languages of other nations, the knowledge and use of 
which were previously wanting to them, and were only 
now communicated in and with the sce. dycov.” 1 
This witness is true. 

Tt is also clear that all the apostles were endued with 
the miraculous gift of speaking in foreign languages 


100mm. on Acts ii. 4. 


376 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsTIoNs. 


with which they were not previously acquainted. The 
statement of the inspired historian is too definite to 
admit of doubt upon that point. “And there appeared 
unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each 
of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, 
and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit 
gave them utterance.” (Acts ii. 3, 4.) ‘They all spoke. 
The concourse was enormous, and there was ample 
opportunity for each of the apostles to address a certain 
group. 

In addition, it is stated that the representatives of 
different nationalities understood the addresses made to 
them in their own native languages. The apostles did 
not, as the Irvingites in London did, speak, under the 
affatus, in unintelligible gibberish — that is, what was 
mere jargon to the hearers. They preached the gospel 
connectedly and intelligibly. The different sections of 
the multitude apprehended the meaning of discourses 
which declared to them “the wonderful works of God.” 

Now, in view of these facts, can it be believed that all 
the idiosyncrasies of the apostles were obliterated, that 
they all spoke in exactly the same style,! that they all 
were confined to one iron-clad form of expression; that 
Peter, for instance, spoke precisely as John did, and 
John as James? Against such a position such consider- 
ations as the following may be presented: 

In the first place, it is obvious that, for the time being, 
the apostles were put by the Spirit in command of the 
vocabularies of the various languages in which they 


1 By style is not intended merely a certain sorts of words, but 
also the mode in which they are put together, arranged and used. 


Tue PRINCIPLE oR SourcE oF THEOLOGY. 377 


spoke. Not only so; they cannot be conceived as having 
possessed a mere farrago of words. How could they 
have been understood in employing them? They must 
also have been endued with the power of arranging them 
syntactically, of constructing intelligent sentences and 
paragraphs. This supposes that each was able to think 
in the language he used. And if that were true, each 
would have thought in accordance with his mental 
ability, and the peculiar structure of his individual 
mind. For if not, another stupendous miracle must be 
supposed to have been unnecessarily superadded to that 
already wrought, by which all the thinking of all the 
apostles would have been reduced to absolute identity. 
Further this would violate the whole analogy of the 
seriptural writings as they record the oral discourses of 
inspired persons. For it is certain that the mode of 
thinking of the reported speakers was not identically 
the same. But the individual styles of thinking of the 
several apostles having been diverse from each other, 
that difference would necessarily have been reflected in 
their individual styles of speech. It cannot be supposed 
that, in violation of his own order of mind, Peter 
thought identically as John, and John as Peter. No 
more can it be conceived that they spoke exactly 
alike. 

It is beyond doubt that the words were given by 
inspiration to the apostles. Now whether we suppose 
that, in the arrangement of the words into intelligent 
discourse, they were governed by the Spirit, or that they 
were not, no difference is created. The view here con- 
tended for stands fast — that the inspiration of words 


— ‘= \ a 


——- = *2 : ind 
Sarr ae oe 


878 Discussions or TxEoLoctcat Questions. 


is not incompatible with peculiarities of utterance. Nor 
ean it affect this view to urge that the thinking of each 
apostle was in his native language, and that, concur- 
rently with his speaking, by a rapid process he mentally 
translated the words of that language into the equivalent 
words of the foreign tongue. His thinking would have 
been his own, and the style of utterance would have 
corresponded with it. 

In the second place, we know of no one divine model 
of style in exact conformity with which the discourses 
of inspired men which are reported in the Scriptures 
were shaped; whether those discourses were reported 
by themselves or others. The point here made is, that 
even in those cases in which the inspired speakers declare 
that the words of the Lord were put into their mouths, 
no one fixed, unmistakable divine type of style was 
employed, but the speakers, thus verbally inspired, used 
that style which expressed their spontaneous, individual 
genius. Even in these instances their discourses are 
strongly marked off from each other by peculiarities of 
style which may without difficulty be discerned. Were 
it otherwise, had there been one divine pattern of style, 
it could easily be recognized, and any divergences from 
it readily detected. When God is reported as speaking, 
he speaks as God; when Christ, he speaks as Christ; 
but when men are reported as speaking, they speak as 
men, even when they are inspired men. To say, then, 
that the apostles, on the day of Pentecost, all spoke 
according to one divine pattern of style is to violate the 
analogy of inspiration. From the nature of the case, 
however, the words in which they spoke were given them 


* 


¢:.* = 
¢ ? . = 


Tuer PrinciPLe or Source oF THEOLoay. 379 


by the Spirit. It was true of them as it was of Jere 
miah that he had put his words into their mouths. If, 
notwithstanding this, their speaking was not character- 
ized by perfect sameness of style, verbal inspiration is 
not in conflict with varieties of style. 

Tn order to parry the force of the argument for verbal 
inspiration derived from the miraculous gift of tongues 
it has been suggested that God may have given the 
apostles, and others similarly endowed, a command of 
foreign languages like that acquired through a mastery 
of them by study; so that the selection of particular 
words was left to the undetermined exercise of their own 
faculties. But — 

In the first place, this concedes the miraculous con- 
ferment of a command, a command in the highest degree, 
of the vocabulary of those languages. This infers, of 
course, the power of the Spirit to dictate particular 
words, if he had imparted a knowledge of the whole 
vocabulary, of a language. He who could do the greater 
could do the less. The only question is whether the 
spirit would indite the particular words. He did in the 
past infuse by inspiration particular words into the 
minds of the prophets, as the sacred records testify. 
On this occasion, if ever, such verbal inspiration would 
seem to have been proper, when the Christian dispensa- 
tion was to be inaugurated, the church under the new 
economy to be organized, and a typical specimen of 
preaching to be furnished, which would be the prophecy 
and keynote of the proclamation of the glorious gospel 
through all the Christian ages. If the words in general 
of those languages in which the preaching of the cross 


380 Discussions or THEOoLoaicaL QuEsTIoNs. 


was to be done had been miraculously given, why not 
now, at this grand, critical, epochal juncture, the miracu- 
lous dictation of the words in particular in which the 
inspired heralds of salvation were to announce the be- 
ginning of a world-wide evangelism ? 

In the second place, if it could be shown that the 
gift of speaking in foreign tongues was not a permanent 
endowment of the mind, but was held in suspension until 
the actual occasions occurred upon which its use was” 
required, the difficulty would be met. In support of that 
position the view may be urged that the inspired persons 
did not of themselves, and by virtue of any power resi- 
dent in them, work miracles. They had no gift to per- 
form miracles. They were simply the announcers of 
God’s purpose to work miracles by his immediate effi- 
ciency, in concurrence with their teachings and in attes- 
tation of them. Now the actual speaking in a previously 
unknown foreign tongue was an unquestionable and 
amazing miracle. It would follow from the mode in 
which miracles were wrought that such speaking was 
accomplished by the immediate efficiency of God. It 
was not effected by a power resident as a habit in the 
mind, and consequently involved the immediate imparta- 
tion of the language by the Spirit of God. 

(2) It is conceded by all who do not oppose inspira- 
tion in every form, that some parts of the Scriptures are 
verbally inspired. It is not denied that at times, at least, 
Moses and the prophets uttered by express direction the 
very words which God delivered to them. But it must 
be granted that in these very discourses the speakers and 
writers employed styles of expression which are stamped 


Tue PrIncIPLe og Source oF THeotoey. 381 


with their individual peculiarities. Were proof re 
quired for this position, the fact could be pointed to that 
the style of the writers in other passages than those 
reporting utterances admitted to have been verbally 
dictated is in the main characterized by the same fea- 
tures with that which is employed in those special pas- 
sages. This consideration is in itself sufficient to show 
that verbal inspiration is not inconsistent with indi- 
vidual modes of expression. 

(3) It may be contended that in those instances in 
which others than the original speakers report their 
utterances, the style is that of the reporters and not of 
the original speakers. So that nothing can be deter- 
mined about the peculiar style of the speakers. For 
example, Luke reported the sermon of Peter on the day 
of Pentecost. How are we to know that the style was 
Peter’s and not Luke’s? It is here assumed that Peter 
spoke under the verbal inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
but the purpose of this special argument does not neces- 
sitate the assumption that he spoke in another than his 
native tongue. He may have used the Greek in general 
use at the time, or the Aramaic, the current tongue of his 
countrymen in his day, or he may have employed the 
Judean rather than the Galilean dialect of that tongue. 
It matters not. The question here is whether in report- 
ing him, Luke gives Peter’s personal peculiarities of 
style, or his own. The same Luke reports Paul’s sermon 
on Mars Hill, and the apostle’s speech before Agrippa. 
Is the style in which the respective reports are couched 
the same? Does it bear upon it Luke’s image and super- 
scription? Who can fail to detect the difference between 


re 
a ¥ 


382 Discussions or THEoLocicat Questions. 


Paul’s style and Peter’s in the reports of Luke? Who 
does not discriminate the majestic sweep of thought in 
the sermon at Athens, and the exquisite elegance, the ~ 
consummate oratory of the defence before Agrippa from 
the plainer, but cogent, discourse of Peter at Pentecost ? 
Is it the one, fixed style of Luke which appears in these 
instances? There can be but one answer to the question. 
It is not. The inspired historian faithfully paints be- 
fore us the peculiar personality of each great speaker. 
The fact, then, that the utterances of inspired persons 
may be recorded by other inspired persons than them- 
selves, does not preclude our discernment of the indi- 
vidual peculiarities of style which distinguish the origi- 
nal speakers. 

(4) The peculiarities of style in connection with the 
verbal inspiration of the sacred writings would seem to 
have been a wise, if not necessary, expedient for settling 
the question of their authorship, and of their divine 
authority. An apostle, for example, was proved by 
miraculous credentials to be divinely commissioned to 
communicate the will of God. His claim to inspiration 
was confirmed by miracles. The question, then, would 
be in relation to a writing alleged to have emanated a 
from an apostle, Did he produce it? And certainly, in 
the personal absence of the reputed author, one impor- 
tant method of deciding that question would be the 
recognition of the style of thought and of expression by 
which he was characterized. His peculiarities having 
identified him as the author, the apostolic source of the 
writing would be necessarily inferred. In this way Paul 
could have been recognized by those who knew him as 


Tue PrincieLe or Source or THEoLoaGy. 383 


the author of the epistles ascribed to him. But Paul 
himself declared that he spoke not in the words which 
man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost 
teacheth. The apostolic authority and the verbal in- 
spiration were both proved. 

‘These reasons avail to show that verbal inspiration 
is not inconsistent with the employment by each of the 
sacred writers of a style of thought and expression which 
was peculiar to and characteristic of himself. 

3. It is objected, that the New Testament writers, in 
quoting from the Old Testament use words of their own, 
different from the original. This objection needs no 
labored reply. The New Testament writers had an in- 
dependent inspiration of their own. They gave the 
sense of the Old Testament writers in words of their 
own, but the words were inspired by the Holy Ghost. 
Was not his authority sufficient to justify them in their 
use? Was not the Spirit an authoritative expositor of 
his own language ? 

4. It is objected, that there are positive errors in the 
Scriptures, in the shape of discrepancies, and even con- 
tradictions in their statements concerning the same 
things. 

It will be observed that this objection does not lie 
specially against the inspiration of the words, but also 
against that of the sense, of the Scriptures. The chief 
answer which I would return to it, and the only one 
which in this place is rendered to it, is that the question 
of plenary inspiration relates mainly to the original 
manuscripts of the Scriptures, and as we are not in 
possession of them, the allegation is not susceptible of 


384 Discussions or TuEroLocicat Questions. 


proof. The discrepancies charged may be wholly due 
to errors of transmission; and if we credit the general, 
uniform testimony of the Scriptures — and that cannot 
be discredited without sweeping away the Bible as a 
whole — must be held to be due to that cause. Some 
of the errors alleged have been removed by a careful 
collation of copies. Those that remain have been treated 
of, and are still treated of, by numerous writers whose 
ability and scholarship will not suffer by comparison 
with those of the objectors. To a careful study of these 
writers alongside of the critics, candid investigators of 
this question are commended. 

The world of criticism and infidelity may be safely 
challenged to prove the errancy of the original docu- 
ments of Scripture. Until that Titanie exploit is ac 


complished, we will abide true to the faith of the church 


universal and perennial in their inerrancy and supreme 
authority. “The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the 
floods have lifted up their voice: the floods lift up their 
waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of 
many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea. 
Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine 
house, O Lord, forever.” 


ta 
pa 
‘ 


AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 


OME things ought to be said, next, concerning the _ 

authority of the Scriptures. Let it be noticed that — 

the question now before us is not in regard to the 

canomical authority of the Scriptures — that is, what 

writings are of canonical authority; but it is, What is 

the authority which attaches to the writings that are 
acknowledged to be canonical Scripture? 

1. If the Scriptures have been proved to be inspired, 
and verbally inspired, of God, it would seem unneces- 
sary to raise the question of their authority. If they are 
his Word, they must be absolutely authoritative touching 
the matters of which they treat. They are clothed with 
God’s authority. This is the orthodox Protestant posi- 
tion. The Scriptures are the inspired, the only inspired, 
the plenarily inspired, revelation of God’s will concern- 
ing religion; therefore, they are the only, the infallible, 
the perfect, sufficient, and supremely authoritative, rule 
of faith and duty. 

This authority of the Scriptures the Protestant holds 
to be exclusive in the sphere of religion. This must be 
true, unless it can be shown that the Scriptures were 
designed by God to be restricted in the territorial scope 
of their influence; that there is besides it some other 
revelation of the divine will, possessing the same marks 


of divine authority as characterize the Scriptures. It 
25 


a 
386 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


must then be proved that the other professed revelation 
is, like the Bible, plenarily inspired of God; that its 
inspiration is established by miracles equal to those by 
which the claim of the Scriptures to be inspired is sus- 
tained; and that it is adapted in all respects to the 
wants of sinful men. This cannot be proved for obvious 
reasons, a few of which, as in themselves sufficient, will 
be stated without expansion. 

In the first place, the Bible professes to speak to all 
men. It challenges attention in the words, Hear, 
O earth! The audience it addresses is the world. It 
declares that there is but one Mediator between God 
and men —the Mediator Christ Jesus, whom it alone 
reveals, and that his name, which it alone proclaims, 
is the only name given under heaven whereby we 
must be saved. It is plain that it recognizes no co- 
ordinate, much less rival, revelation of God’s will to 
mankind. 

In the second place, the Bible being inspired, this 
claim to world-wide authority and supremacy must be 
true, and it must be exclusive of that of any other reve- 
lation. Two supreme sovereigns can no more reign in 
the same religious sphere than in the same political 
sphere. The reason is plain. Each would limit and 
condition the other, which would be contradictory to the 
supposition of the supremacy of either. 

In the third place, no other revelation has been 
established by miracles, clear, unimpeachable miracles. 
This needs no argument. 

In the fourth place, no other revelation provides for 


Tue PrincipLe or Source or THEoLoey. 387 


the redemption of men from guilt, depravity and ruin. 
The Bible alone is adapted to the spiritual necessities of 
the human race. 

In the fifth place, the world needs a revelation which 
is characterized by unity, which is consistent with itself, 
unfluctuating in its requirements and unchangeable in 
its decisions. The conception of several revelations, 
respectively adapted to different sections of the race, 
which are incompatible with and contradictory to each 
other, is perfectly absurd. It needs no consideration. 
Either these revelations would be supposed to emanate 
from the same source, and God’s unity and self- 
consistency are destroyed ; or from different sources, and 
polytheism is the result. 

It must be added that a revelation is required, which 
is evidently not the product of the human reason. It 
must be recognized as an immutable standard, absolutely 
free from the varying opinions, conceits and tastes of 
men. 

If, now, the Scriptures are proved to be a revelation 
from God, plenarily inspired by him, it is at the same 
time proved that they are possessed of supreme and 
exclusive authority in matters of religion. 

2. The Protestant position will be best gathered from 
the Reformed Confessions. Some extracts will, there 
fore, be furnished from these venerable symbols stained 
with the blood of martyrs. They will be selected from 
churches separated from each other by national associa- 
tions and interests, but bound together by the holy ties 
of a common faith. 





388 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


As a specimen of the doctrine held by the German 
Lutheran Church an extract is taken first from the Con- 
fession of Wiirtemburg: 


“The holy Scriptures we call those canonical books of the Old 
and New Testament, of whose authority there was never doubt 
made in the church. This Scripture we believe and confess to be 
the oracle of the Holy Ghost, so confirmed by heavenly testimo- 
nies, that, ‘If an angel from heaven preach any other thing, let 
him be accursed’ (Gal. i. 8). Wherefore we detest all doctrine, 
worship, and religion, contrary to this Scripture. But whereas 
some men think, that all doctrine necessary to be known of us 
to true and everlasting salvation is not contained in this Serip- 
ture, and that the right of expounding this Scripture lieth so in 
the power of chief bishops, that what they, according to their 
own will, give out, is to be embraced for the meaning of the Holy 
Ghost; it is more easily said than proved. . . . Many examples 
also do witness that chief bishops have been often and very foully 
deceived; wherefore the gift of expounding the Scripture is not 
so tied to the Popes, that whosoever shall be Pope must needs 
rightly expound the Scripture; but the true meaning of the 
Scripture is to be sought in the Scripture itself, and among those 
that, being raised up by the Spirit of God, expound Scripture by 
Scripture.” , 

“We confess that councils ought to have their judgments in 
the church concerning the holy doctrine of religion, and that the 
authority of lawful councils is great; but the authority of God’s 
Word must needs be greatest.” 


The second extract is from the Formula of Con- 
cord: 


> 

“We believe, and confess, and teach that the only rule and 
norm, according to which all dogmas and: all doctors ought to 
be esteemed and judged, is no other whatever than the prophetic 
and apostolic writings both of the Old and of the New Testament.” 
“But the other symbols and other writings, of which we made 
mention a little while ago, do not possess the authority of a 
judge; for this dignity belongs to holy Scripture alone.” 


Tue Principte or Source or THEeoLtocy. 389 


The Second Helvetic Confession: 


“We believe and confess the canonical Scriptures of the holy 
prophets and apostles of both Testaments to be the very true 
Word of God, and to have sufficient authority of themselves, not 
of men.” “In controversies of religion, or matters of faith, we 
cannot admit any other judge than God himself, pronouncing by 
the Holy Scriptures what is true, what is false, what is to be 
followed, or what to be avoided.” 


The Bohemian Confession: 


“First of all, the ministers of our churches teach with one 
consent, concerning the holy Scripture of the New and Old Testa- 
ment (which is commonly called the Bible, and is lawfully received 
and allowed of the fathers which are of the best and soundest 
judgment), that it is true, certain, and worthy to be believed; 
whereunto no other human writings whatsoever, or of what sort 
soever they be, may be compared, but that, as man’s writings, they 
must give place to the holy Scripture.” 


The French Confession: 


“We believe that the Word, contained in these books [the 
canonical] came from one God; of whom alone, and not of men, 
the authority thereof dependeth. And seeing this is the sum of 
all truth, containing whatsoever is required for the worship of 
God and our salvation, we hold it not lawful for men, no, not 
for the angels themselves, to add or detract anything to or from 
that Word, or to alter any whit at all in the same. And hereupon 
it followeth that it is not lawful to oppose either antiquity, 
custom, multitude, man’s wisdom and judgment, or edicts, or 
any decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, unto this holy 
Scripture; but rather that all things ought to be examined and 
tried by the rule and square thereof.” French: “Mais, au con- 
traire, toutes choses doivent étre examinées, réglées et réformées 
selon elle.” 


The Belgic Confession: 


“These books [of Scripture] do we receive as sacred and 
canonical, whereupon our faith may rest, be confirmed and estab- 


* 


15% 


390 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 
lished. Therefore without any doubt we believe also those things 
which are contained in them; and that not so much because the 
church receiveth and alloweth them as canonical, as for that the 
Holy Ghost beareth witness to our consciences that they came 
from God; and most of all for that they also testify and justify 
by themselves this their own sacred authority and sanctity, seeing 
that even the blind may clearly behold, and, as it were; feel the 
fulfilling and accomplishment of all things which were foretold in 
these writings.” + 


The (Polish) Confession of Thorne: ? 


“The sacred Scriptures divinely delivered in the books of the 
Old Testament through Moses and the prophets, in the books of 
the New Testament through the evangelists and the apostles, are 
the only, the infallible and the perfect norm and rule of Christian 
faith and worship.” 


The Scotch Confession: 


“As we believe and confess the Scriptures of God sufficient to 
instruct and make the man of God perfect (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17), 
so do we affirm and avow the authority of the same to be of God, 
and neither to depend on men nor angels. We affirm, therefore, 
that such as allege the Scripture to have no other authority but 
that which it hath received from the church are blasphemous 
against God, and injurious to the true church; which always 
heareth and obeyeth the voice of her own Spouse and Pastor 
(John x. 27, but taketh not upon her to be mistress over the 
same.” “So far then as the council proveth the determination 
and commandment that it giveth by the plain Word of God, so 
soon do we reverence and embrace the same. But if men, under 
the name of a council, pretend to forge unto us new articles of 
our faith, or to make constitutions repugnant to the Word of 
God, then utterly we must refuse the same as the doctrine of 
devils, which draweth our souls from the voice of our only God, 
to follow the doctrines and constitutions of men (1 Tim. iy. 1-6). 
The cause, then, why that general councils came together, was 
neither to make any perpetual law which God before had not 


1 Translated from the Latin. 





Tur PRrIncieLe or Source or Turotocy. 391 


made, neither yet to forge new articles of our belief, neither to 
give the Word of God authority; much less to make that to be 
his Word, or yet the true interpretation of the same, which was 
not before his holy will expressed in his Word.” 


The Irish (Episcopal) Confession (1615) : 


“The ground of our religion and the rule of faith and all 
saving truth is the Word of God, contained in the holy Scripture. 
By the name of holy Scripture we understand all the canonical 
books of the Old and New Testament, viz. . . . All which we 
acknowledge to be given by the inspiration of God, and in that 
regard to be of most certain credit and highest authority.” 


The English Confession (extant in Bishop Jewel’s 
Apology, 1562) : 

“We receive and embrace all the canonical Scriptures, both of 
the Old and the New Testament. . . . Also, we profess that 
these be the heavenly voices, whereby God hath opened unto us 
his will; . . . that they be the foundations of the prophets 
and apostles whereupon is built the church of God; that they be 
the very sure and infallible rule, whereby may be tried whether 
the church do swerve or err, and whereunto all ecclesiastical doc- 
trine ought to be called to account; and that against these Scrip- 
tures neither law, nor ordinance, nor any custom ought to be 
heard; no, though Paul himself, or an angel from heaven, should 
come and teach the contrary (Gal. i. 8). 


The Westminster Confession : 


“Under the name of holy Scripture, or the Word of God. writ- 
ten, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testa- 
ment. . . . All of which are given by inspiration of God, to 
be the rule of faith and life.” “The authority of the holy Scrip- 
ture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not 
upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God 
(who is truth itself), the Author thereof; and therefore it is to 
be received, because it is the Word of God.” “We may be moved 
and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and rev- 


es i i) 
<9 


= & . ft aac 
% < 
392 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


erent esteem of the holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the 
matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the 
consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give 
all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of 
man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellences, and 
the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth 
abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwith- 
standing, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible 
truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of 
the holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our 
hearts.” “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is 
the Scripture itself.” “The Supreme Judge, by which all con- 
troversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of 
councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and pri- 
vate spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are 
to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the 
Scripture.” 





[At this point, these words were written in pencil, “To be 
finished if God wills.” Although unfinished, that which has been 
written is of sufficient interest and importance, especially to the 
non-ministerial reader, who seldom has access to the confessions 
quoted, to justify its insertion in these discussions.—Eprror.] 


THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 


HAT, precisely, do we mean by the Personality 
of Christ ? 

He was from eternity a divine person — the second 
person in the Godhead. In this respect, no more, no 
less, he was and continues to be a person. Since the 
incarnation, he is not two persons, nor a compound 
person — a divine-human person, as Dorner holds — but 
one and the same divine person. 

The assumption of human nature no more changed 
his personality than his divine nature. Both remain 
the same, intrinsically. Of course, the divine nature 
cannot change, either by increment or decrement. Other- 
wise it would not be divine. An infinite nature cannot 
change by increment, for, from the necessity of the case, 
the infinite can receive no addition: if it could be appre- 
hended as the infinite plus something, it would not be 
apprehended as the infinite. Nor could an infinite 
nature change by decrement, for any subtraction appre- 
hended as made from it would destroy the apprehension 
of it as infinite. It would be the infinite less the thing 
subtracted, which is a contradiction. 

The same reasoning may be employed in ea to 
the personality of Christ. He was and is an infinite 
person. Any intrinsic change in his personality would 
involve the supposition of a contradiction. The assump- 


394 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsSTIONS. 


tion of human nature, therefore, into connection with 
the divine person of Christ must be so understood as not 
to imply any intrinsic change in his personality. There 
is the co-existence, since the incarnation took place, of 
the human nature of Christ with his divine nature, both 
being related to his person, but there is neither intrinsic 
addition to his divine nature nor to his personality. It 
is the same person that now has two natures, who, pre- 
viously to the incarnation, had actually, though not in 
the divine decree, one nature only. The assumption of 
human nature into connection with the person of the 
Son of God involved no intrinsic addition to his per- 
sonality. 

What, then, was the nature of the act by which the 
assumption of human nature was effected? It was the 
constitution of a new relation, grounding a new mani- 
festation of the eternal Son of God, “God was manifest 
in the flesh.” 

Now, although this is an altogether transcendent 
mystery, for “great is the mystery of godliness — God 
was manifest in the flesh;” still it can searcely be said 
to be, in one aspect of it, more mysterious than any new 
manifestation of the divine being which involves the 
creation of other beings or substances than God himself, 
and the constitution of new relations between him and 
them. The difficulty occasioned by the plenitude, the 
omnitude, of an infinite substance is common to both 
doctrines. We believe the fact, but we cannot conceive 
how there can be an infinite being and other distinet 
beings beside. The supposition, to thought, appears to 
be equivalent to infinity plus something else, which 
seems to be a contradiction. But reason and Scripture 





” Tuer Person oF OCurist. 395 


alike enforce the fact of creation, and the consequent 
existence of substances different from God, without the 
result of any substantial addition to the divine being. 
The creation of the human nature of the Son of God, 
therefore, does not induce the consequence that any addi- 
tion was thereby made to his divine substance; and the 
same course of reasoning would apply to his divine 
personality. 

We have, then — 

1. The eternal, divine personality of Christ, by virtue 
of which he is a distinct subsistence. 

2. The eternal, divine nature of Christ, which 
afforded a divine ground for the expression of his per- 
sonality. 

3. The creation and assumption of the human nature 
of Christ — the assumption not of a human personality, 
but of a human nature, into connection with the divine 
person of Christ. 

4. The doctrine, negatively, that this involves no 
intrinsic change either in the divine nature, or the divine 
person of Christ. The terms constitution of the person 
of Christ are not to be so understood as to convey the 
impression that a new person — a mediatorial, complex 
person — began to be, who did not exist before; or that, 
whereas the person of the Son of God was, previously 
to the incarnation, simple, it is since composite. 

5. The doctrine, positively, that there is involved the 
creation of a new nature, the constitution of a new 
relation, and the institution of a new medium of mani- 
festation: a new nature — the human nature of Christ; 
a new relation — that between the person of Christ and 


396 Discussions or THEoLoaicaL Questions. 





his created human nature; a new medium of manifesta- 
tion—namely, the human nature, which affords a human 
ground for the expression of Christ’s personality. 

6. Two distinct, but related consciousnesses, namely, 
of the divine and human natures of Christ. This does 
not suppose a third consciousness, that of the person; 
but it is the same person — Christ the Son of God — 
who is divinely conscious in the divine nature, and 
humanly conscious in the human nature. 

7. Two separate, but related wills—that of the 
divine nature, and that of the human nature. Through 
the divine will the person, Christ, energizes divinely; 
through the human will the person, Christ, energizes 
humanly. If the infinite God may finitely manifest 
himself, if he may voluntarily energize through finite 
existences, that is, if the infinite power of God is not 
always infinitely exercised, the difficulty in the doctrine 
that Christ as a divine person energized through his 
human will is relieved. It is this doctrine that grounds 
the infinite value and sufficiency of the human sufferings 
of Christ as the substitute of the sinner. As an infinite 
person he energized through the finite will of his human 
nature. This imparted infinite merit to his human 
obedience in life and in death. 

8. The union of two natures, divine and human, in 
the person of Christ — a union without the conversion, 
composition, or confusion of the natures, but one which 
is not a mere juxtaposition, or a mere moral association. 
It is a personal union, to the apprehension of which we 
are helped by the conviction we have of a personal union 
of our souls and bodies. From this it follows, that what 


Tue Person or OCurist. 397 


is predicable of either nature (or substance, or essence) 
is predicable of the person, Christ. He is infinite, he 
is finite. This is not possibly predicable of the Father 
or the Holy Spirit; it is true only of the Son, in conse- 
quence of the stupendous and all-controlling fact of his 
incarnation. This union is technically termed the 
hypostatical union. 

9. A communion of the attributes of the two natures, 
divine and human, in the person of Christ, but not a 
communication of the attributes of either nature to the 
other. 

As, in the case of the Trinity, personality is not 
treated as of the divine essence or substance, so, in the 
ease of the hypostatic union, personality is not treated 
as of the human essence or substance. In either case 
personality is indispensable, is inseparable from the 
essence, but not strictly essential, that is, of the very 
essence itself. In the hypostatic union some personality 
is indispensable, but it is not human, it is divine, per- 
sonality. The essential conditions for the expression of 
personality are human — namely, individuality, intelli- 
gence, affections, will, and conscience, but the personality 
which expresses itself through these human conditions is 
divine. 

The mystery of the Trinity, utterly insoluble by 
thought, although received by faith, is, that three persons 
consist with one essence. The mystery of the hypostatic 
union is the inverse of this, to-wit, that three essences 
consist with one person. For there is the divine essence, 
the essence of the human soul, and the essence of the 
human body. This can no more be comprehended by 


: 


398 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


thought than the triunity of God. But as faith receives 
the doctrine of the Trinity upon the testimony of God, 
it accepts, upon the same ground, the equally mysterious 
doctrine of Christ’s hypostatic union. 

' Let us briefly consider, first, some of those forms in 
which the speculative reason has attempted to get rid of 
the difficulties encompassing the subject, and, secondly, 


the modes in which the effort has been made to relieve - 


the apparent contradiction in the church-doctrine, that 
Christ assumed a true and proper human nature, with- 
out human personality. 

1. The doctrine of two persons — the so-called Nes- 
torian theory. 

If, to escape the difficulties emerging to speculation 
in connection with the doctrine of Christ’s person, we 


adopt the hypothesis of a dual personality, we only 


substitute heresy for the truth. 

(1) If Christ be held to have two persons, it is main- 
tained that he has two subsistences, the one divine, the 
other human. There would not be one Christ, but two 
Christs — a divine and a human. 

(2) There would be no bond of union between the two 
persons. The church-doctrine holds that the bond of 
union between the two natures of Christ is his one divine 
person. But if there be two persons, the hypostatical 
union is destroyed. There could be no conceivable nexus 
between the persons. It could not be the divine nature, 
for that would involve the interfusion and mixture of 
the persons as well as of the natures. The position that 
the bond of union between the supposed persons is a 
moral one is entirely insufficient. There is a moral 





Tue Person or CuristT. 399 


union between the person of the believer and that of 
Christ, but that union consists with a difference of 
person. 

(3) If there were two persons, each could address the 
other as different from itself; each could say J, and 
address the other as thou. But no such representation 
is found in the Scriptures. Christ is so addressed, and 
says I, implying that he is one person; but there is no 
statement to the effect that a divine Christ addresses a 
human Christ as thou, or vice versa, or that either of 
these person, supposed to exist, says I. ‘ 

All the other theories which are not orthodox, and 
which have at any time prevailed, may be reduced to 
two general classes: those which admit, and those which 
deny, the personality of Christ. 

Those which admit the personality of Christ are 
characterized by one common feature — the affirmation 
of only one nature, or the attempt to reduce two natures 
to one, as the ground of personal manifestation. 

1. The affirmation of but one nature is palpably 
opposed to the plainest testimonies of Scripture; and 
apart from Scripture the question as to the person of 
Christ is non-existent. 

2. The attempt to reduce two natures to one is also 
opposed to the plain teachings of Scripture; but, in 
addition, it involves contradictions, and is, therefore, 
false on fundamental grounds of reason. 

(1) It supposes, at one time, the reduction of two 
substances to unity, which is a contradiction; and the 
contradiction, were it possible, becomes more pronounced 
when an infinite and a finite substance are said to be one. 





400 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuesTions. 


No contradiction can be greater than an infinite-finite 
substance. 

(2) It supposes, at another time, the theisll of 
the properties of one nature into the other nature. Now, 
this involves the hypotheses, either — 

First, that the transference is total, or, 

Secondly, that the transference is partial. 

If the first — that the transference is total — then: 

In the first place, you have a substance existing with- 
out any attribute; which is a contradiction. 

In the second place, a substance which has its own 
complement of attributes plus the complement of attri- 
butes of another substance; which is a contradiction. 

In the third place, a substance with infinite attributes 
plus finite attributes; which is a contradiction. 

In the fourth place, a substance with infinite attri- 
butes of a certain sort plus finite attributes of the same 
sort, as, for example, infinite love plus finite love; which 
is a contradiction of contradictions. 

If the second hypothesis be maintained — that the 
transference of attributes is partial — then: F 

In the first place, some of the contradictions already 
signalized are encountered on the side of the nature 
added to by the transference, and — 

In the second place, on the side of the nature sub- 
tracted from you have a substance without some of its 
attributes, which, if not itself a contradiction, involves, 
in the case considered, this consequence: that one of 
the natures of Christ is mutilated and imperfect; and 
that supposes a mutilated and imperfect Christ, which is 
a contradiction, ; 


Tur Prrson or Curist. 401 


(8) The attempt to reduce two natures to one sup- 
poses the reduction upon the same substance of incom- 
patible and irreconcilable attributes, which is a contra- 
diction; for as an attribute is a manifestation of a sub- 
stance, the same substance would, on this supposition, 
manifest itself in contradictory modes. It manifests 
itself, for example, as infinite and as finite, as divine 
and as human. The argument here is not that different 
attributes are made to inhere in the same substance, but 
contradictory attributes. 

If the ground be taken that the attributes transferred 
are taken up into — absorbed into — the attributes of 
the substance to which the transference is made, that 
involves either the continued existence of the attributes 
transferred, or their destruction. If they continue to 
exist, you have not only the coexistence of contradictory 
attributes in the same substance, which is a contradic 
tion; but the inhesion of an attribute in another attri- 
bute to which it is contradictory; which is a supreme 
contradiction and absurdity. If the attributes trans- 
ferred are destroyed, then there is no transference; for 
that which, in the supposed act of transference, ceases 
to exist, is not transferred. A thing cannot be said to 
be transferred and destroyed, without a contradiction. 

If this reasoning be correct, the result to which Dr. 
Dorner’s learned and elaborate exposition of the doctrine 
concerning the person of Christ has conducted him can- 
not be sustained — namely, that Christ is possessed of a 
divine-human consciousness, and a divine-human voli- 
tion, inasmuch as he is a divine-human person with a 


divine-human essence. A few citations will give his 
26 


402 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


conclusion. ‘Whether, therefore, we take our start with 
the logos or with man, we find that the self-consciousness 
(and volition) of each includes the other momentum in 
itself as a determination of itself. What, consequently, 
is present on both sides, is nothing but the divine-hwman 
consciousness, one and the same, which is neither a 
merely human consciousness of the logos, nor a merely 
divine consciousness of man, but a divine-human con- 
sciousness of both, that is, as both actually exist, to-wit, 
as united; consequently, divine-human consciousness 
and volition.” } 

“At the centre of his being, it is true, this man is from 
the very beginning divine-human essence: but, in the 
first place, many things are lacking to this person; other 
things in it are still dissolubly united — for example, 
the body is still mortal; other things are still mutable, 
without detriment to its identity. The divine-human 
articulation, the bodily and the spiritual eternal organ- 
ism, of the divinehuman person, needs first to be de- 
veloped; and this can only take place through the con- 
tinued act of the incarnation of the logos.” ? 

The “depotentiation” of the divine essence in the 
humanity of Christ, as maintained by some German 
theologians, may be resigned to the tender mercies of 
Dr. Dorner, who has made sad havoc of it; but his 
criticism might as well have turned its edge upon his 
own theory of the “self-limitation” of the divine essence 
by which it was contracted to the dimensions of the 
humanity, so that a “divine human growth” resulted. _ 


‘Div. IL., Vol. IIL, p. 249: T. & T. Clark, 1878. ba 
*Ibid., p. 258. 








THE PERSON oF CuHRIST. 403 


It amounts to the enunciation of an illimitable-limited 
essence! A “divine-human consciousness, one and the 
same,” and a “divine-human volition,” of course, sup- 
pose a divine-human essence one and the same. What 
is this but the assertion that the infinite and the finite 
may be one and the same. From this absolute contradic- 
tion the church-doctrine, existing from the Council of 
Constantinople, A. D. 681, is free. It affirms the union 
of the divine and human natures without conversion, 
division, or composition (atpéxtwc, dueptatws, davyx0Tws) 
in the one person of Christ, who is divinely conscious 
and divinely wills in the divine nature, and is humanly 
conscious and humanly wills in the human nature. This 
is mysterious enough; but it does not make the extra- 
ordinary draft upon our intelligence of believing that 
the infinite is finite or the finite infinite. Dr. Dorner 
expresses his gratification that the “old dualism,” that 
is, the doctrine of two distinct, but related natures in 
the person of Christ, is coming to be more and more 
abandoned by theologians; which is very much like his 
rejoicing over the fact, that theology is retracing its 
steps on the back track to the monophysitism and mo- 
nothelitism, which, after centuries of conflict, the church 
deliberately and solemnly rejected. 

Only a few words need be said here in regard to the 
theories which deny the personality of Christ. 

Under this class come some modern German theories. 
As they deny the divine personality of Christ, they can- 
not without a solecism be designated as theories con- 
cerning the person of Christ. They are not only un- 
scriptural, but flatly anti-scriptural and infidel. Under 


404 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





this class must be ranked Schleiermacher’s famous spec- 
ulation, by which he fabricated a Christ from himself. 
It denied Christ’s divine person, as it also rejected the 
person of the Holy Ghost, and was therefore antichris- 
tian. 

All these theories — the spawn of human pride and 
folly — have two features in common: first, the denial 
of the objective authority of the Scriptures as plenarily 
inspired — rationalism ; and, secondly, the philosophical 
hypothesis of the unity of an impersonal God and the 
universe — pantheism. They are, therefore, to be 
treated as all other infidel theories are: to be met with 
an assertion of the testimony of God’s written Word, so 
far forth as they falsely pretend to be religious, and, as 
philosophical speculations, to be brought to the test of 
sound principles of reason. 

The church-doctrine touching the hypostatical union 
being now reverted to, it must be acknowledged that to 
reason it involves a difficulty at the formidable character 
of which it were idle to blink. It is that it seems to 
imply a contradiction, in affirming that Christ became a 
true and proper man, and denying that he became a 
human person. If human nature cannot be conceived 
as entire without personality, how can it be maintained, 
without a contradiction, that the Son of God assumed 
an entire human nature, and yet did not assume human 
' personality ? 

Let us consider some of the most prominent modes in 
which it has been attempted to relieve this apparent 
contradiction. 


One form of the solution of this difficulty is the 


Tur Person or Curist. 405 


hypothesis that the Son of God assumed generic human 
nature. But there are difficulties attending this hypoth- 
esis, almost, if not quite, as formidable as that which 
it attempts to solve. 

1. The supposition of the existence of a generic nature 
of man is attended by all the difficulties which attach 
to the doctrine of realism. 

2. A generic nature, strictly speaking, must be 
regarded as destitute of consciousness. Hence Dr. 
Shedd, who held the view that it was the generic human 
nature which sinned in the first instance, contends, in 
his theological essays, that the first sin was unconsciously 
committed, at least unconsciously originated. But the 
church-doctrine ascribes a human consciousness to 
Christ. The hypothesis under consideration, therefore, 
is out of harmony with that doctrine. 

3. The hypothesis would seem, upon the principles 
of those who hold that generic human nature is capable 
of moral action, to involve the inference that Christ’s 
human nature was implicated in the first sin. This is 
avoided by the doctrine that the first sin was committed 
by Adam as a person, representing the persons of his 
posterity. As in accordance with the principle of 
federal representation, his guilt is derived to his de 
scendants through the channel of parental propagation, 
it follows that as Christ was born out of the line of 
ordinary generation, the guilt of Adam, in the first sin, 
could not have been derived to him. And this is the 
doctrine of the church. Christ was not represented in 
Adam; on the contrary, he represented Adam. Birth, 
according to ordinary generation, designates the parties 


406 Discussions or THEoLocicat Questions. 


upon whom the covenant of works terminates, just as the 
second birth denominates the parties upon whom the 
covenant of grace takes effect. Christ not having been 
ordinarily generated, was not a party to the first cove- 
nant. Consequently, moral turpitude, the stain of sin, 
could not have existed, consistently with justice, in him. 
He inherited no judicial result of the breach of the 


covenant. Not having been representatively guilty, he 


could not have been inherently depraved. In this way a 
clear account is given of the sinlessness of Christ, not- 
withstanding the fact that he was a human being. 

But, if Christ assumed the generic human nature, the 
limiting conditions which we have seen to be imposed by 
the principle of representation would be removed. They 
would have no existence. No account could be fairly 
given of his exemption from sin. For, if it was the 
generic nature which sinned, and in that way the impu- 
tation of sin is grounded, as he had the generic nature 
and the generic nature alone and simply, he must have 
sinned when that nature sinned. It is scarcely con- 
ceivable what supposition even ingenuity could devise, 
in order to avoid this difficulty — a difficulty, however, 
which if not removed inevitably swamps the hypothesis. 

If it be said, that as, in the case of the glorified saint, 
grace is able to sanctify nature, so Christ’s nature was 
perfectly sanctified, that is true, but the difficulty is not 
removed. The saint was first a sinner and then is 
sanctified. Was Christ also a sinner before sanctifica- 
tion? He must have been so, according to this hypoth- 
esis before us, for the generic nature which it supposes 
him to have assumed sinned in the first instance. But 





’ 


Tur Prrson or Curist. 407 


it certainly will not do to say that Christ, as possessor of 
that nature, sinned when Adam sinned. 

Nor will it do to say that Christ’s case was excep- 
tional. For, according to the hypothesis, he did not 
assume a nature, but generic human nature. How could 
his generic nature have been distinguished from the 
generic nature of man, so as to allow of its being excep- 
tional? Manifestly it could not. The supposition is 
absurd. It amounts to the assertion that as his case was 
singular he had an individual human nature which was 
at the same time merely generic. And it deserves notice 
that the hypothesis makes the exceptional sinlessness 
of Christ an impossibility, and therefore makes redemp- 
tion an impossibility. 

If it be said that God in some way prevented the 
implication of Christ in the first sin, the question is, 
How? Did he do it by decree? Then it would follow 
that as he decreed not to prevent the sin of the generic 
nature, he at the same time decreed to prevent the sin 
of the generic nature; for, according to the supposition, 
Christ had the generic nature. A contradiction emerges. 
And if God did not accomplish this result by decree, how 
else is it conceivable that he accomplished it? Is there 
anything done by him, which he did not decree to do? 
That is out of the question. 

There is no conceivable mode in which this hypothesis 
can unload itself of the tremendous difficulty that it 
implicates Christ in the first sin of the race, and that 
consideration alone is sufficient to refute it. 

4, This hypothesis involves the exclusion of Christ’s 
possession of individual attributes, and his performance 


408 Discussions or TuHEorocioat Questions. 





of individual acts. This is obvious, for the hypothesis 
limits his human nature to a generic nature. Other men 
may be conceived as possessing a generic nature, and at 
the same time existing as individual men, manifesting 
that nature in specific and peculiar qualities and acts. 
But, upon this hypothesis, Christ is restricted to the 
activity of a generic nature, and what that could be it is 
difficult, if not impossible to conceive. To such a view 
of the human nature of Christ the whole testimony of 
Scripture is opposed. It represents him as an individual 
man, characterized by individual attributes and dis- 
charging individual functions. It speaks of him as a 
man, not merely as man. He who supped with his 
disciples was contradistinguished as an individual man 
from them. John, while he lay in his bosom, was not 
Jesus, nor was Jesus he. 

To this it may be replied that the individualization 
of Christ must be referred to his divine personality; 
that only as he was a person did he possess individuality : 
it was the divine person who hungered, thirsted, suffered, 
prayed, loved, shed tears of sympathy with the sisters of 
Bethany, wept passionately at the gates of Jerusalem, 
and in the agony of the human soul in Gethsemane, 
uttered the mysterious words, “Let this cup pass from 
me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” 

But this view involves the position that the divine 
person of Christ, as divine, was susceptible of suffering. 
There are many mysteries in Scripture which pass our 
ability to comprehend; but this view not only implies 
a mystery, but a contradiction. God as such ean- 
not suffer, and as the person of Christ is divine, the 


Tur Prrson or Curist. 409 


same must be predicated of it. Suffering and want 
infer finiteness, and Christ’s person is infinite. The 
connection of his divine person and his divine nature 
with the human nature imparted to its sufferings an 
infinite value, and by virtue of that connection the 
human nature was preserved from sinking into extinc- 
tion under the pressure of an infinite curse; but it was 
the human nature which was the subject of suffering. 
In consequence also of the hypostatic union the suffer- 
ings of the human nature are predicated of the divine 
person, but that by no means shows that it was the divine 
person which actually experienced the sufferings. 

It would seem, then, that on the one hand a mere 
generic humanity is not sufficient to account for acts 
and sufferings which necessarily suppose an individual 
actor and sufferer, with an individual consciousness, and 
on the other that the fact of individuality is not com- 
petently explained upon the hypothesis that it consists 
in the communication of the individualizing element 
from the divine person — communicatio persone. All 
that we can say, in view of all the facts in the case taken 
together is, that there was an individual human con- 
sciousness, and that the divine person expressed itself 
humanly through that consciousness. Not that there 
was, as some of the Lutheran theologians contend, a 
divine-human consciousness, but a divine person, who 
was, in a way incomprehensible by us, humanly con- 
scious. To assert a divine-human consciousness is either, 
first, to maintain a compound consciousness, partly 
human and partly divine, which would be to mutilate 
the human consciousness, and also to predicate conscious- 


;. = wwe 
Fe” Ree os 
— > - ~~ 

tle 


410 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


ness of the divine person, as person, apart from the 
divine nature; neither of which suppositions can be 
validly supported; or, secondly, to affirm the absorption 
of the human consciousness into the divine on the one 
hand, or the transfusion of the divine into the human on 
the other, and then, to the extent of the absorption or 
transfusion, the consciousness absorbed or transfused 
vanishes and the resultant could not be denominated 
divine-human, since it would be either divine or human; 
or, thirdly, to hold that both consciousnesses exist in 
their integrity in one compound consciousness, which 
would violate all our coneceptions of the nature of con- 
sciousness as absolutely simple. 

Christ was not simply man, but a man, not simply 
human nature, but a human being. But this man, this 
human being, had personal subsistence in a divine per- 
son. Thus he is at once properly the Son of man and 
properly the son of God. These appear to be the facts. 
Their explanation may not belong to this sphere of 
thought. 

5. I confess, moreover, that this view of the assump- 
tion by the Son of God of generic humanity appears to 
lean too decidedly to the semi-pantheistie doctrine of 
some of the modern theologians of Germany — that 
there is, by virtue of such a union, a Christie life in the 
church as an organic whole, to which its development is 
to be attributed. The orthodox doctrine is, that Christ 
dwells in the church, but the mode of this indwelling is 
explained by the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in the 
church as a collection of individual believers. Christ is 
in the church by his Spirit, in the sense that he is in 


Tue Person oF CuRIST. 411 


every believer by his Spirit. This doctrine is that the 
development of the church is the development of the 
substance of Christ incarnate, as that of the world is the 
development, according to the pantheistic conception, 
of the substance of God. Too much care cannot be taken 
to guard the Scripture doctrine touching the personality, 
offices and work of the ever-blessed Spirit against this 
insidious hypothesis. ; 

Another mode in which the difficulty under considera- 
tion may be sought to be met is, by supposing that the 
Son of God assumed human nature with personality, but 
that the human personality was absorbed into the divine. 

This involves one or other of two subordinate suppo- 
sitions. Either, first, the human personality continued 
after this absorption, and then the personality of the 
Son of God became composite and so changed from its 
original simplicity — which contradicts our conception 
of the intrinsic immutability of the second person in 
the Godhead ; or, secondly, the human personality ceases 
in consequence of the absorption, and then the difficulty 
of an impersonal human nature returns in all its force. 
If the absorption took place upon the assumption of the 
human nature into union with the divine person, there 
never was actually and historically any personal human 
nature in the case. If the absorption took place after 
the assumption of the human nature, there was a period 
when Christ had a dual personality, and the orthodox 
doctrine is denied, the Nestorian affirmed. 

Such considerations are sufficient to show the unten- 
ableness of the supposition that the human personality 
was absorbed into the divine. 


412 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


The same difficulties, substantially, oppose the suppo- 


sition that Christ assumed human personality, but that — 


it is subjected to and dominated by the divine per- 
sonality. 

Another view, which I have heard expressed, is that 
Christ may have possessed human personality without 
having been a human person. In this way it was sought 
to reconcile the church-doctrine with itself. But if it be 
conceded that he had human personality, it cannot be 
denied that he was a human person. Whatever may be 
held in regard to the nature of personality, it must be 
confessed that it supposes a person to whom it belongs, 
and a person akin to its nature. What is it, if it be not 
a property of a person? The word is simply an abstract 
term signifying the property of a person in the concrete. 
No meaning can be attached to it apart from such a 
signification. Wherever there is personality, there must 
be supposed a person in whom it inheres. Now, as it 
would be illegitimate, if not contradictory and absurd, 
to say that the human personality of Christ was a quality 
belonging to and characterizing his divine person, the 
admission of human personality is the admission that 
he was a human person. 

On the other hand, if the church-doctrine be received, 
namely, that he was not a human person, it cannot, if 
the foregoing reasoning be correct, be at the same time 
held that he was possessed of human personality. This 
view must be regarded as an inadequate attempt to solve 
the difficulty growing out of the orthodox doctrine that 
Christ assumed the entire human nature, but not a 
human person, into connection with his divine person. 





Tuer Person oF CuristT. 413 


Another method of resolving the difficulty was that of 
some of the Spanish Scotists, and with them the acute 
Jesuit Suarez concurred upon certain points. “They 
wished,” as Dorner remarks,! “to make greater earnest 
with the full truth of the humanity, and therefore held 
more to the doctrine of Duns Scotus, who, like Descartes 
and the monophysites, did not hold personality, which 
[Christ’s] humanity was generally assumed to lack, to 
be a reality, but deemed it to be simply the limit of the 
natura; so that-nothing failed the humanity. of Christ 
of completeness.” 

To deny the reality of personality, it may be answered, 
is to violate one of the primary convictions of our minds. 
In whatever way this conviction obtains, whether by the 
direct testimony of consciousness, or by a necessary 
belief accompanying that testimony, it has the effect of 
impressing upon us the reality of personality. How 
else could we hold to our personal identity, and the 
important practical consequences which flow from it? 
It is not in this way that we can meet the difficulty under 
examination. 

Still another mode of solving the problem was that 
of those Thomists, who viewed the personality as some- 
thing real. They “held personality,” says Dorner,” “to 
be something so essential to human nature, that they 
assumed it to be stirred by a natural tendency thereto ; 
nay more, some of them said, it would have attained the 
personalitas connaturalis to which it tended, even if the 
Word had not intervened. But even if this intervention 


1 Person of Christ, Vol. IV., p. 447, note: Clark’s Ed. 
*Tbid., p. 448. 


414 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


were not conceived as a consumption of the human 
personality by the divine, there still remained behind a 
hindrance to the impulse towards personification, which 
was both foreign and external to the humanity. So in 
the case of Vasquez (Disp. 34), according to whom the 
humanity of Christ, although it has in the Verbum the 
highest personality, yearns after its own personality 
even in the Unio; because without it, it cannot be in the 
true and full sense humanity.” 

This is unsatisfactory, for this reason, if no other, 
that we are not told what that hindrance to personifica- 
tion was, which apart from the intervention of Christ’s 
divine person, acted as a foreign and external force. In 
addition to this, the statement is objectionable, that the 
human personality may have been consumed by the 
divine, for reasons already given, and, moreover, the 
doctrine is inadmissible, that not only is the human 
nature assumed into union with the divine person, but 
becomes personal in Christ, so that he is now a divine- 
human person. For this, if it mean anything, must 
mean that Christ is both divinely and humanly personal 
in one complex person. It may be sufficient to say that 
such a view involves the present existence of the human 
personality in Christ, and therefore renders superfluous 
the question how he could have assumed an entire and 
an impersonal human nature at the same time. If he 
now has human personality he must have assumed it in 
the act of assuming human nature. Otherwise how did 
he get it? 

There are only two conceivable modes of answering 
this difficulty: either, first, that the divine person be- 


PT a eee ee eee ee 






Tue Prrson or Curist. 415 


came also a human person; or, secondly, that both 
divine and human personality consist in one complex 
person. ; 

The first supposition is absurd. It is impossible that 
the infinite divine person could become also a finite 
human person. It is infinitely more difficult to believe 
it than to believe all the contents of space packed into a 
thimble. 

The second supposition — that of Christ’s complex 
personality — infers one of two things: either, first, 
that the complex personality consists of two personalities 
brought together in one whole; or, secondly, that the 
assumption of the human nature into connection with the 
divine person changed the simple personality into a 
complex one. 

The first inference is rejected by the orthodox writers 
who hold the doctrine of a complex person. They deny 
that Christ assumed human personality. 

The second inference cannot be maintained. For, if 
the relation of a nature to personality has the effect of 
changing the simplicity of the personality to complexity, 
the eternal relation of the divine nature to the per- 
sonality of the Son of God stamped it an eternally com- 
plex personality. That, of course, will be denied. But 
if so, then, a fortiori, it must be denied that the relation 
of the human nature to the personality of the Son of 
God could have had the effect of making it a complex 
personality. 

The only supposition remaining is, that the relation 
of both the divine and human natures to the personality 
rendered it complex. But it cannot be shown that what 


416 Discussions or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


neither could, in any degree, separately effect, they may 
in combination accomplish. The question still occurs, 
How can the union of nature with personality render 
the personality complex ¢ 

The fact is, that in theological usage nature and 
person are two distinct categories. If, therefore, you 
unite them, neither is the nature changed by the union, 
nor the person. They cannot be conceived as reduced to 
unity in one complex whole. The compound would con- 
sist of heterogeneous elements. The divine nature is 
not the person; neither is the human. Both are insep- 
arably related to one and the same unmodified person, 
but neither one nor the other can be considered an 


element constituent of the person, nor can both be 


regarded as together discharging that office. 

Having thus endeavored to evince the unsatisfactori- 
ness of the hypotheses which have been considered, I 
have to admit that the only way in which I am able in 
any degree to free the church-doctrine of the person of 
Christ from the apparent contradiction under whieh it 
labors, is by supposing that human nature may in some 
sense be regarded as entire without the possession of 
human personality. For it is held, in that doctrine, that 
the Son of God assumed the entire human nature, but 
assumed it as impersonal. Some personality is de 
manded for its completeness, but not necessarily, in 
every instance, human personality. The essential ele 
ments of human nature may be individuality, intelli- 
gence, affections, will and moral qualities. ‘These may 
constitute the indispensable conditions upon which per- 
sonality expresses itself; and where they exist some 





Tue Person oF Curist. 417 


personality is required. In the case of all other men 
but Christ that personality is human; in his case it was 
divine. Ordinarily a human person expresses himself 
through these conditions. In the extraordinary — the 
miraculous, instance of Christ, the divine person ex- 
presses himself through these human conditions. The 
uman nature in him is not avizostatog — not abso- 
cutely impersonal; it has no human personal subsis- 
tence, but it has subsistence in his divine person. 

It may be that personality is neither of the essence of 
human nature, nor a quality separable from it. If so, 
Christ may have assumed the entire human nature, as to 
its essence, and supplied the inseparable quality of per- 
sonality from his divine person. 

If, however, all attempts of the speculative reason 
should fail to remove the apparent contradiction which 
has been under consideration, we must throw ourselves 
back upon the testimony of the divine Word, accept it 
by an unquestioning faith, and rest in the conclusion 
that the contradiction is only apparent and not real. 
Mindful of the weakness of our faculties it becomes us 
to refrain from dogmatizing upon a question so pro- 
foundly difficult as that of personality confessedly is, 
and to await the light of another sphere, when, if it 
should please God to impart it, a further revelation may 
dissipate all our difficulties. But should he never fur- 
nish it, we will believe, and believe upon his naked 
testimony, forever. 


27 


418 Duiscusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Somr AppITIONAL THOUGHTS. 


1. There are not in Christ three wills — the will of 
the divine nature, the will of the human nature, and the 
will of the person. 

2. What limitation took place at the incarnation was 
of the divine glory and of the exercise of divine power. 

3. We must distinguish between the influence of the 
will of the divine nature upon the will of the human 
nature and the energizing of the person through the will 
of the human nature. 

4. There is no more difficulty in supposing the im- 
perfection and development of the will of the human 
nature, though energized by the person, than in sup- 
posing the imperfection and development of the intelli- 
gence of the human nature. Both belonged to the 
person. 

5. As the determining grace of God does not all at 
once determine the believer to entire sanctification, so 
the divine power did not produce a perfect development 
of the human will of Christ all at once. 

6. We are liable to be confused by supposing that 
there was a personal will of Christ that operated 
through his human will. The human will was Christ's 
will. 

It was he who had the self-determining power of the 
human will. It was his will which was brought into 
conflict with the devil, and elected to endure the divine 
wrath. 

This grounds the precious doctrine of his real sym- 






' 


THE Person or Curist. 419 


pathy with his people under their temptations and 
trials. 

The question has been sometimes discussed, What 
was it that became incarnate? Was it the divine person 
or the divine essence? Some take one view and some the 
other. The true statement would seem to be that the 
divine nature or essence as related to the person of the 
Son, and only so far as thus related, became incarnate. 
God became incarnate, but as neither did the Father nor 
the Holy Ghost become incarnate, the above-stated view 
would appear to be necessitated. 

In this conclusion, to which I had come independently, 
I am supported by Calovin and Deutschmann, as cited 
by Dorner, who say, “The divine nature became incar- 
nate, not in so far as it was common to the Father and 
the Holy Spirit, but so far as it subsists in the persona 
filu.” 

Finally, the profoundly difficult questions arise, What 
is personality? What is a person? Upon these ques- 
tions I do not pretend to dogmatize. Partial answers 
are capable of being inferentially derived from the 
statements of Scripture, and whatever light we thus 
possess must modify the conclusions to which the philo- 
sophical reason is conducted by the method of analysis 
and synthesis. 

1. I agree with those thinkers who regard the con- 
viction of personality as native. It necessarily springs 
from a fundamental law of belief, elicited into formal 
expression by the conditions furnished by experience. 
Being an original principle, it is simple and incapable 
of resolution. An attempt, therefore, strictly to define 


490 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


it must be expected to fail. But, like other fundamental _ 


beliefs, it may, when developed in consciousness upon 
empirical conditions, be described both negatively and 
positively. We are entitled to say what its contents do 
not imply, and what they do. 

2. A just account of personality, so far as its specific 
difference is concerned, must exclude all the spontaneous 
elements which are common to man with the lower ani- 
mals: First, the appetites and sensations of a bodily 
organism; secondly, whatsoever intelligence, feelings, 
will, collected in an individual contradistinguished to 
other individuals, may characterize a lower animal; 
thirdly, consciousness, for every animal must have con- 
sciousness, to some extent. This would seem to be clear, 
unless we are prepared to adopt the exceptional hypothe- 
sis that the lower animals are, in some sense, persons. . 

3. It must, as specific, exclude all the essential ele- 
ments which are common to Christ with man. What 
are they? Individuality, intelligence, feelings, will, 
and moral qualities. These belong to the human essence, 
for if any of them are eliminated the integrity of the 
essence is destroyed. It may be objected that individu- 
ality is not essential: That could only be shown by 
proving that a generic human essence, without indi- 
vidualization, has ever been an historic fact. But why 
must these essential elements be excluded from the 
differentia of personality? Because the Scriptures 
teach us that Christ possesses the entire human essence, 
but not human personality. This, to all believers in the 
inspired authority of the Scriptures, settles the fact that 
the human essence and personality, as specific, are dis- 


’ 
‘ 





Tur Person or Curist. 491 


tinguishable. To this view, accordingly, the church- 
doctrine is conformed. Individuality, intelligence, will, 
moral qualities, and the consciousness of their activities, 
must be thought away from a just description of per- 
sonality, except as it presupposes them as a nature-basis 
for its action, as the spontaneous conditions upon which 
it exerts its peculiar energy. Without them there could 
not be personality, but they do not constitute it. It is 
something specifically distinguishable from them. 

4, It must exclude any element which cannot be 
predicated of man through all the moral changes which 
have marked his history. Whatever may be the transi- 
tions through which he has passed, it cannot be denied 
that personality abides an unchanging element of his 
being. He may not be what he once was, but he is still a 
person. Hence, it would seem necessary to exclude the 
element of a freedom of the will involving self-determi- 
nation which some represent as the chief distinctive 
mark of personality. For, to deny that man has, by a 
free self-decision determined himself as sinful, so that, 
while he freely concurs with a fixed, evil spontaneity, he 
has not the ability by an elective act to substitute for it 
a good spontaneity, would be to deny as well the uni- 
versal facts of experience and observation as the plain 
statements of the Scriptures. Although, however, this 
be so, the personality of man continues to express itself 
through a determined sinful spontaneity. As a person 
man reflectively appropriates and acts through the 
nature which has become fixed in corruption. Granted, 
that in other relations he may possess the attribute of 
self-determination—of otherwise determining—in this 


~ 


coe a “ey aN 


422 Discussions or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


respect he does not. A proper description of personality, 
therefore, must be broad enough to include both of these 
elements. It would be too narrow if it were confined to 


one only. The essential must be embraced, the acei- 


dental excluded. 

5. It must. leave out any element which cannot be 
predicated of the person of the Son of God, and perhaps, 
more generally, which cannot be affirmed of any person 
in the ever-blessed Trinity. For aught that appears to 
the contrary, personality in the Godhead is the archetype 
of which human personality is the ectype, and personal 
fellowship among the divine persons the original of 
personal fellowship among created beings; and it may 
be legitimate to argue, on natural grounds, from the 
existence of the latter to that of the former, and thus to 
construct a valid rational argument for Christianity 
against any religion—Mohammedanism, for instance— 
which affirms the mere uni-personality of God. Such a 
view is not liable to the objection that it assumes an 
analogy of man, or any other creature, as finite, to the 
deity as infinite. But the incommunicable or modal 
attributes of God, which can have no image or likeness 
in the creature, being left out of account, it is legitimate 
to maintain, we are warranted by the Scriptures in 
maintaining that there is some analogy between the 
attributes of man and the communicable or determi- 
native attributes of his Maker. Personality must be 


assigned a place in this latter category. It constituted a — 


part of that natural image of God in which man was 
made. If this be so, as moral responsibility cannot, 
without a solecism be predicated of the persons of the 





q 
; 
. 


Tue Person oF CHRIST. 423 


Godhead, it would appear improper to include it in the 
distinctive peculiarities of personality. 

There are needed elements which designate person- 
ality in its widest sense, as existing in the Godhead as 
well as in humanity, which, without supposing respon- 
sibility in the former, would involve it in the latter; for 
it must be admitted that personality is accompanied with 
responsibility in man, while it is not in God; somewhat 
as it is attended by the power of self-determination in 
one phase of man’s history, and not in another, as has 
already been intimated. 

In reply to this the view may be suggested that the 
person of the Son of God was responsible, so far forth 
as he was Mediator. He is termed in the Scriptures, 
and he confessed himself to be, the servant of the Father, 
under obligation to execute the Father’s will. But it 
must be considered that — 

(1) Some things are predicable of Christ, as media- 
tor, which cannot be predicated of him simply as the 
second person of the Godhead. 

(2) The Son freely consented to undertake the engage- 
ments of a mediator, federal head and representative of 
his human seed. He entered into a new relation without 
undergoing an intrinsic change in his divine personality, 
a relation of such a character as to involve responsibility, 
growing out of a subjection to law which did not exist 
antecedently. It was an assumed, not an eternal and 
necessary responsibility inherent in him as a coequal 
person in the Godhead. 

(3) The responsibility assumed was derived not from 
the divine, but the human side of his mediatorial person. 


424 Discussions or TuHEronoaicaL Questions. 





For even when in eternity he accepted the call of the — 
Father to undertake the work of redemption, the engage- 
ments into which he entered supposed his susception of 
human nature; that is, it was not simply as a divine 
person that he covenanted to execute the work of man’s 
salvation, but as a divine person appointed and pur- 
posing to become incarnate, and in the very act of cove- 
nanting he represented the human constituents given to 
him by the Father to be redeemed. It was as the 
appointed mediator and federal head that he assumed 
that obligation which carried responsibility with it. 
Now, as mediator he is God and man; and while 
responsibility may be affirmed of him in this twofold 
aspect, it cannot be properly said to have belonged to 
him in the single aspect of his divine personality. There 
must have been some element of his divine person which, 
when he became incarnate, rendered possible the assump- 
tion of responsibility. What it was, an attempt will 
humbly be made in the sequel to indicate, should not 
this analysis prove abortive. 

Having briefly endeavored to point out the elements 
which personality, viewed as specific, that is, as distinct 
from a generic essence, must exclude, we may pass on 
to the inquiry, what distinctive features it ought to be 
conceived as embracing. 

_1. Generically speaking, it supposes an individual 
being — what in theology is termed a subsistence — an 
individual being possessed of an essence (or substance, 
or nature) consisting of intelligence, feelings, will, and 
moral qualities with consciousness of their operations. 
These essential elements are not constituents of per- 


THE Person or Curis. 425 


sonality; they are the conditions of its energy. Their 
operation is spontaneous, and in this fact we detect a 
principal difference between an essence and a person. 

2. Considered specifically, that is contradistinguished 
to a generic essence, personality involves the knowledge 
which an individual being possesses of its identity. 
We have no reason to suppose that a brute, although an 
individual being, has this knowledge. We certainly act 
upon the contrary supposition. It has memory, in a 
certain sense, and memory sometimes strongly mani- 
fested; but we would not, at a given time, hold a brute 
responsible for an injurious act done by it years before, 
and punish it for that act. Sameness of individual being 
is one thing, but the conviction of that sameness is quite 
another; and we proceed upon the supposition that the 
conviction of identity conditions the infliction of penalty. 
In a word, the brute is not a subject of law consciously 
obliging it at every period of its existence. 

In this respect man is distinguished from the lower 
animals. He knows at sixty years of age that he is 
responsible for an act committed at twenty. Upon this 
fact, that man continues identically the same individual 
being in every period of his life, and that he is conscious 
of that identity, many of the processes of human law are 
founded; and in this regard it justly reflects those of 
the divine law. Sameness of individual being is com- 
mon to man with the brute, but the knowledge of his 
identity which characterizes man is peculiar to him. 
As, therefore, that knowledge does not belong to man 
regarded simply as an individual being, it must be 
referred to him as personal. It is as a person that he 


426 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 









knows his identity, and the transcendently important 
consequences which flow from it. This is substantially — 
ihe view of Kant, who regarded “the consciousness of _ 
identity” as one of the distinctive features of per- — 
sonality. 

It affords some countenance to this conclusion that it ’ 
is applicable to the persons of the Godhead. The divine — 
essence abides eternally the same, and in this respect — 
there is no distinction between the divine persons. Nor — 
can we refuse individuality to that essence, although 3 
infinite, since it is different from all the individual — 
essences in the created universe. But he who is the 
Father, as such, is not the Son, nor is the Father or the © 
Son, as such, the Spirit. And as (what) each person — 
must eternally be what he is as person, each must eter- — 
nally know his identity as person. 

3. Another peculiar element of personality, the deaig- 
nation of which is here adventured, is reflective activity, — 
in contradistinction to the spontaneous activity of the © 
essence to which it belongs. Every constituent element 
of the essence is spontaneously active; but that is very 
different from saying that they are reflectively active. 3 
Reflection does not pertain to the essence; and by reflec- 
tion is not meant consciousness, or attention, which is 
but consciousness intensified; but the power by which — 
the spontaneous states and activities of the essence are — 
deliberately appropriated, and made the conditions of 
deliberate action. This it is in man which, in connection — 
with the conviction of personal identity, grounds per- 
sonal responsibility, and this it is, be it reverently 
spoken, which constitutes the personality of man an 


a ee art 
Tue Person oF CuHrist. 427 


image of the divine personality. Is it venturing too far 
to say that as all the persons of the Godhead have one 
and the same spontaneous essence, each person appro- 
priates that essence and energizes peculiarly through it 
in his peculiar relation to the other persons? It is this 
power of reflective activity in man which at one time 
expresses itself in self-determination, and at another in 
deliberate concurrence with an already determined 
spontaneity. 

As the result of this analysis the following descriptive 
statements are presented : 

Personality is the knowledge of its identity possessed 
by an individual being, and its reflective activity upon 
the spontaneous conditions of intelligence, feelings, will, 
and moral qualities, furnished by its essence. 

A person is an individual being (or subsistence) 
knowing its identity, and reflectively acting upon the 
spontaneous conditions of intelligence, feelings, will, and 
moral qualities, furnished by its essence. 





THE DOCTRINE OF ADOPTION. — 


HE doctrinal truths of Scripture are fixed and 
unalterable. In themselves considered, they are, 
like their divine Author, perfect, and therefore unsus- 
ceptible of change. There can be no human development 
of their intrinsic nature. " 
But the knowledge of these unchanging truths by the 
imperfect mind of man is capable of development. Tt 
may be more or less perfect. This subjective appre 
hension of objective truth may be increased in intensity, © 
in scope and in adequacy. It is needless to observe that — 
its growth, in the history of the church, has largely 
depended upon the challenge of acknowledged truth by — 
errorists, by the conflict of theological views, and by the — 
thorough-going discussion which has for these reasons — 
been necessitated. In this way the church’s knowledge — 
of the doctrine of the Trinity, of sin, and of justification — 
has been cleared up, matured and crystallized. To the 
precisely formulated statements of these truths it is not — 
to be expected that much that is either novel or im- © 
portant will be added. . 
The same, however, is not true of the doctrine of © 
adoption. It has not been made the subject of much 
controversy, nor has it received the didactic exposition — 
which has been devoted to most of the other topics _ 
included in the theology of redemption. Its importance “ 


a 
Tae 
Je 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 429 


has been to a large extent overlooked, its place in a 
distinct and independent treatment of the covenant of 
grace has been refused, while leading theologians have 
differed in regard even to its nature and its office. 

In recent years, however, some elaborate discussion 
has been had upon the question of the Fatherhood of 
God, in which the subject of adoption has received a 
measure of consideration. Dr. Candlish in his work on 
the Fatherhood of God, Mr. Wright in his book on the 
same theme, and Dr. Thornwell in his lectures on the- 
ology, have definitely maintained the ground that by 
nature man is not a son of God, but simply a subject and 
servant; that it depended upon Adam’s fidelity as a 
subject and servant, during the time of trial assigned 
him, whether he would by adoption have been elevated 
into the relation of a son; and that the only filial con- 
nection with God that can be predicated of sinners is 
that which is constituted by the grace of adoption. To 
the views of Dr. Candlish and Mr. Wright a reply was 
offered by Dr. Crawford, professor of Divinity in the 
University of Edinburgh, in his work on the Fatherhood 
of God. 

This makes it proper that before the topic of adoption 
is directly considered, some preliminary remarks should 
be made upon the question of man’s natural relation to 
God. Is he, in any sense, a son of God by nature? 

The remarks which will be submitted on this subject 
consist of several distinct papers prepared at different 
times. On this account they contain repetitions to a 
certain extent, but they have not been reduced to one 
logical whole, principally because each several discussion 


430 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 




















presents some statements and aspects of the question 
which are peculiar to itself. . 


i 


The Scripture passages which bear upon the subject 
have been subjected to so particular a consideration in 
the argument between Dr. Candlish and Dr. Crawford, 
that it is not deemed necessary here to reproduce the 
discussion. Until recent times the consensus of com- 
mentators and theologians has, with but a few excep- 
tions, been in favor of the doctrine that man was by 
nature, in some sense, a son of God. This, of course, 
does not settle the question, but it creates a presumption, — 
which can be rebutted only by considerations of the most — 
convincing character. To my mind, this presumption 
has not been rebutted by the ingenious arguments which — 
have been adduced to the contrary. It seems to me clear — 
that the genealogical table in Luke affirms Adam’s filial — 
relation to God in some real sense; that the parable of — 
the prodigal son proceeds upon the assumption that man — 
was a son of God, and not merely a servant, before his — 
apostasy; and that Paul’s argument at Mars Hill, in — 
which he alleged the testimony of Aratus and Cleanthes — 
to the fact of man’s filial relation to God, is dealt with — 
violently when it is treated as simply an argumentum — 
ad hominem. 

Inasmuch, however, as godly and learned men have, — 
in recent times, differed in their interpretation of Serip- — 
ture testimonies upon the point, there is room for dis- 
cussion. Those who desire to examine the exegetical 
argument are referred to the works of Dr. Candlish and — 
Dr. Crawford. 


Tue Doorrine or Apoprion. 431 


iF. 


How do we become children of God? In the first 
instance, by regeneration. We are re-begotten. The 
very force of this term is derived from the mode in 
which man was originally made a son of God. The only 
possible way in which we can conceive the relation to be 
formed between God and man is creation. Man must be 
made a son of God by the creative act. Hence, in the 
case of a sinner, the relation is constituted by a new 
creation in Christ Jesus. What, then, was the old 
ereation, if it did not involve the constitution of the 
filial relation, as well as that of a servant? What re- 
generation, what new creation, would there be, were 
there not a generation, a creation? The terms regenera- 
tion and new creation are scriptural. It would seem 
that the condition to which we are restored by regene- 
ration or new creation is one which man had, in a certain 
degree, previously held, and which he had lost. 

There would appear also to be a distinction between 
what is natural and what is spiritual in man’s original 
relation of a son to God. The natural relation is one 
which once constituted can never be destroyed. It is a 
fact incapable of ceasing to be. It is essential, not 
accidental. The relation which a son sustains to his 
human father, as a natural fact, can, from the nature 
of the case, never be changed. The son may be disin- 
herited, disowned, cast out, in consequence of his bad 
conduct, but to a disgraceful end he will continue to be 
his father’s son. Somebody’s child he must ‘be; he is 
not the child of nobody. In this purely natural sense, 
the sinner is a son of God. Even the heathen are his 


432 Discussions or THEoLocicaL QueEsTrons. 


offspring, as the apostle Paul acknowledges in his ser- 
mon on Mars Hill. Sinners and devils are sons in 
revolt — sons disinherited, excommunicated, reprobated, 


but still sons, under the indestructible obligation of 2 


nature to render filial obedience to God. A subject does 
not cease to be a subject of his monarch because he 
rebels. While going to execution for treason he is a 
subject still, under obligation to render obedience to 
his sovereign. So is it with a son. at 

There are two senses — and they are accidental, not 
essential — in which man by his fall ceased to be a son 
of God. 

In the first place, he lost his spiritual life, and, there- 
fore, ceased to be spiritually a son of God, and became, 
in this spiritual sense, a child of disobedience, a child of 
the devil. The nature of these expressions determines 
the sense in which the filial relation is regarded. Man 
never was produced, created, by disobedience or the 
devil, as he was produced, created, by God. The 
spiritual character of the moral agent is here depicted. 
Man voluntarily broke with God, and, so far as his own 
agency went, destroyed the tie which bound him to his 
Maker. 

In the second place, man, by sin, ceased to be legally 
a son of God. His disobedience disinherited him. His 
rights were contingent upon continued holiness. That 
gone, they went with it. God disowned and execommu- 
nicated him. Thenceforward he became a child of 
wrath. 

The prodigal son voluntarily departs from his father’s 
house. He voluntarily severs the filial tie, so far as it is 





Tue Doctrine or Apoprion. 433 


possible for him to do so. He revolts, sets up for him- 
self, apostatizes, links himself with strangers; yet, at 
the swine-troughs he says, “I will arise and go to my 
father.” This is the Saviour’s picture of our apostate 
nature. The natural relation of man to God as a Father 
remains. Spiritually and legally it has been destroyed. 
By grace, through faith and penitence, it may be spirit- 
ually and legally restored. 


EET, 


The strongest point made by those who deny that 
Adam sustained the filial relation to God is, that moral 
government and moral discipline are incompatible with 
each other, if directed to the same individual. Adam 
certainly was under moral government; therefore, he 
was not under moral discipline. 

1. It would appear to be obvious that moral govern- 
ment is a proximate genus under which moral discipline 
is a species. Is not discipline a sort of government ? 
And is not moral discipline a sort of moral government ? 
Tf so, it is clear that they are not generically distinct. 
And as the whole essence designated by the genus must 
enter into each of the species included under it, govern- 
ment, and government as moral, must be admitted to be 
the essence of discipline. 

2. Moral government as generic may be regarded as 
distributable into the two species — moral government 
as retributive, and moral government as disciplinary. 
The question, fairly put, is not whether moral discipline 
is inconsistent with moral government, but whether it 


is inconsistent with retributive moral government — in 
28 


434 Discussions or THEoLoGicaL Questions. 


relation to the same moral agent. The question, then, is 





really,” whether Adam could have existed under both — 


these specific forms of moral government. The denial 
that he could must be proved. 

3. But supposing it proved that he could not have 
existed under a retributive and disciplinary moral gov- 
ernment at one and the same time, the further question 
arises, whether he was, strictly speaking, under disci- 
pline. Or, rather, the question first is, whether the 
relation of father and son necessarily involves the admin- 
istration of government merely in its disciplinary form. 
May it not be that there is a wide difference between a 
son simply considered, and an adopted son? 

4. But supposing, further, that such a possibility is 
disproved, may not the question still arise, whether in 
the case of a son whose obedience is contingent — that 
is, a son who is not confirmed in his father’s regard — 
the disciplinary feature of moral government may not, 
to a certain extent, be mingled with that of retributive 
government ? 

All these suppositions must be squarely met by the 
deniers of Adam’s filial relation before their position ean 
be established. 

5. In addition to these points another must be noticed. 
It is the wide difference between the application of 
moral government to a sinner, and to an innocent being.* 
What is predicable of one case is not necessarily predi- 
cable of the other. More strictly, all that is predicable 
of the one may not be predicable of the other. It is 


See Thornwell’s Coll. Writ., Vol. I., p. 262. 


OE eee eee eee ee ee, ee 


—_—* 


a or 


Tue Doctrint oF ADOPTION. 435 


clear that no unpardoned sinner can be under a govern- 
ment of discipline. But that, of course, is a question 
foreign to the present argument. The only question is, 
whether Adam as innocent could have been under a 
disciplinary regime. 

Now in regard to the question, whether retributive 
and disciplinary government may be contemporaneously 
exercised towards the same individual, the following 
views deserve consideration: 

1. It is certainly conceivable that the same person may 
be at the same time both magistrate and father; and 
also that the relations of subject and son may co-exist in 
the same person. 

(1) Human analogy, if it be legitimate to appeal to it 
here — and how can it be excluded altogether ? — proves 
the possibility of the case supposed. 

(2) The facts of redemption prove it. First, Christ 
was both subject and Son. Secondly, believers are both 
servants and sons. If so, God in each of these instances 
combines the relations of ruler and Father. Now, either 
the ruler is sunk in the father; or, the father is sunk 
in the ruler; or, they are separate, but related. It 
would be unscriptural to adopt either of the first two of 
these suppositions. It remains that the last is the only 
one which is scriptural. It is difficult to see that, while 
this coexistence of the two relations, in actual exercise, 
is a fact in the economy of redemption, it was impossible 
under the scheme of natural religion. _ 

2. The relation to law and will is not peculiar to a 
subject or servant; it is also sustained by ason. Surely 
there are such things as parental law and parental will. 


436 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





If there be such a thing as parental government, this is 
obvious. 

3. The authority of a ruler and that of a father may 
not only terminate on the same person, but on the same 
course of conduct or the same specific act. 

4, Leaving out of account the case of adoption as an 
element-in God’s dealings with man, which has singular 
and peculiar characteristics, it is clearly conceivable that 
the rule of a father may, to a certain extent, be admin- 
istered retributively towards a son. Its punitive inflic- 
tions may be final and irremediable. It is hard to 
imagine how this can be denied, in the case of a son 
whose obedience is contingent, whose rights are not con- 
firmed, and whose standing is conditioned upon the 
maintenance of filial integrity. At least, those measures 
which are ultimate and remediless, if not in their own 
proper nature retributive, are so to all intents and pur- 
poses. They have the same effect as retribution; and 
they are all the more severe because of the closeness of 
the relation which has been disregarded, and the pecu- 
liar imperativeness of the obligations which have been 
violated. The inflictions rise in severity in proportion 
to the strength of the motives which have been resisted. 

5, Even in the case of the adopted child of God in the 
‘sphere of redemption, the principle of distributive jus- 
tice is, in a certain sense and to a certain extent, em- 
ployed — that is, as an element of God’s fatherly rule 
over his own house. This follows from the doctrine of 
degrees of glory. That doctrine is clearly enunciated 
by our Saviour in the parable of the pounds, and is 
taught elsewhere in the New Testament. The degree 


Tue Doctrine oF ADOPTION. 437 


of reward to be attained by each saint is determined by 
the measure of his fidelity. The principle upon which 
the relative distribution will proceed cannot be anything 
else than justice — the justice of God, not as he is ruler 
simply, but as he is fatherly ruler. That any reward 
ean be attained at all is due to the principle of grace; 
but the attainment of reward being guaranteed by grace, 
the degree of the reward will be assigned by justice. 
It is true that so far as the believer in Christ is con- 
cerned, justice will never operate as rectoral and retribu- 
tive to the exclusion of all reward, and the infliction of 
any punishment. That function of justice is rendered 
impossible by the operation of redeeming grace. 

But the question is, not whether some special features 
of distributive justice — penal features — exist in rela- 
tion to the believer, but whether the principle of dis- 
tributive justice holds in regard to him in any respect. 
For the ground is maintained that distributive justice 
as the peculiar principle of moral government is ex- 
eluded from disciplinary rule. But, if it must be con- 
ceded that it does, in any degree, operate in the case of 
the adopted child of God, that position is untenable. 
And then it may be argued that the principle of distribu- 
tive justice is not necessarily incompatible with moral 
discipline; and a fortiori that if Adam had sustained 
the filial relation to God distributive justice may have 
entered, must have entered, into the discipline to which 
he was subjected. Surely, if the principle of distribu- 
tive justice is applicable to the adopted son of God, it 
was not inapplicable to a son who was not yet confirmed, 
but whose relative status was contingent upon the preser- 


438 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





vation of filial integrity. And so, as far as appears, there 
is no just reason for denying that it could, in such a case, 
have inflicted punishment as well as have bestowed 
reward. 

IV. 

Tt has already been shown that moral government is 
generic, and that it contains under it the two species, 
retributive and disciplinary government. They are both 
moral, but are distinguished from each other by peculiar 
properties. Now, there are two distinct questions which 
are apt to be confounded. 

1. There may be the question, whether the two rela- 
tions of servant and son may co-exist in the same person. 
This is a question which can be decided in the affirmative 
by an appeal to the facts of Scripture. Christ was both 
a servant and a Son. The believer in Christ is both a 
servant and ason. The co-existence is a fact in certain 
eases. There is, therefore, no impossibility which op- 
poses its realization. Adam, consequently, may have 
combined these two relations in his individual person. 
Whether he actually did or not, is a question to be 
settled by the testimony of Scripture, either explicitly 
or by good and necessary inference. If it can be shown 
from that source that he did, no apparent contradictori- 
ness between the two relations that is suggested by reason 
can weigh against the scriptural proof of their actual 
co-existence. 

9. There may be also another question — namely, 
whether the same person can at the same time be related 
to retributive (or distributive) justice and fatherly 
justice, to retributive government and disciplinary 


Tur DoctrinE or ADOPTION. 439 


government. Now, it would be shown that this is not 
impossible, if a single case can be proved by Scripture 
to have actually involved these two relations. Such a 
case we unquestionably have in Christ. He was under 
the retributive government of God, for “he hath re- 
deemed us from the curse of the law, having been made 
a curse for us.” But he was also a subject of discipline, 
for “we have not an high priest who cannot be touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” His discipline 
was not corrective, for there was nothing in him to be 
corrected who was “holy, harmless, undefiled and sepa- 
rate from sinners;” but it was perfective, for he was 
the Captain of our salvation who was perfected through 
suffering. He was disciplined in the school of trial, that 
he might be able to sympathize with his people as they 
pass through their afflictions. This case, then, proves 
that there is no impossibility that the same person should 
at the same time sustain a two-fold relation to retributive 
and disciplinary moral government. 

Tn inquiring whether Adam may have sustained this 
two-fold relation, we must be careful to distinguish his 
ease from that of the sinner unredeemed and unregen- 
erate, and also that of the sinner redeemed and regen- 
erate. It is impossible to suppose that the unredeemed 
sinner is under fatherly discipline, for the simple reason 
that he is under the curse of a broken law. Discipline, 
_as far as a sinful being is concerned, is from its very 
nature remedial, and inasmuch as God has provided no 
remedy for the sinner except through the redemption 
achieved by his Son, it is evident that the sinner apart 


Fy ; 
? 


© 


440 Discussions or Turorocicat Questions. 


from Christ is simply under the government of law in 
its retributive and punitive aspects. 

On the other hand, it is equally impossible to suppose 
that a sinner redeemed and regenerate should be under. 
moral government contemplated as retributive, in the 
sense of penal. His substitute has fully satisfied in his 
behalf the demands of retributive justice and of the law 
which reflects it, and he is discharged. He can, there- 
fore, be regarded as being simply under moral govern- 
ment in its disciplinary aspect. 

The case of Adam in innocence was out of analogy to 
the sinner, however conditioned, whether unredeemed 
or redeemed. He was neither subject to the penal 
measures of retributive government, nor the corrective 
discipline of fatherly government. He was, as innocent, 
an accepted servant and son of God, neither exposed to 
the curse of the Judge, nor to the chastisements of the 
Father. But there is no impossibility in supposing him 
to have been under moral government, both as retribu- 
tive and disciplinary. He was, as a subject and servant, 
under obligation to render perfect obedience to the moral 
law as the rule of God’s retributive government. That 
is denied by no orthodox thinker. But he was also under 
a discipline which was intended to perfect him in the 
discharge of filial obedience to the law as the rule of 
God’s fatherly government. In both respects his obe- 
dience was contingent. He might, in one respect, have 
secured the reward of justification as a subject and 
servant; and, in the other, the reward of confirmation 
asason. In the first case, he would have been confirmed 
in God’s rectoral regards; in the second, he would have 





« 
og . 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 441 


been confirmed in God’s parental regards. He was sub- 
ject to temptation, but one may be tempted to disobe- 
dience as a son, as well as a servant, and the trial may 
have been adapted to his probation in both of these 
respects. Against this view several difficulties have been 
urged. 

(1) It is contended that the co-existent relations of 
the same person to retributive disciplinary government 
are inconsistent with each other. This difficulty is pro- 
fessedly founded upon the nature and ends of these sorts 
of government. But it has been shown that in an actual, 
historic case, these relations did co-exist. That is suffi- 
cient to show that they are not intrinsically inconsistent. 
Dr. Thornwell says, in distinguishing the relation of a 
servant from that of a son, that in the former “the law is 
looked upon more as an expression of will — its author- 
ity is prominent. In the case of a son, the prominent 
notion is that of imitation — ‘imitators of God as dear 
children.’” But, I humbly submit that two distinct 
questions seem here to be confounded: the one, Why 
must obedience be rendered? The other, How must 
obedience be rendered? Whether the person be a ser- 
vant or a son, the answer to the first question must be, 
Because the authority of God requires it; in one case, 
the authority of God as magistrate, in the other, the 
authority of God as father. In both cases, there is the 
obligation to obey springing from the expression of a 
superior will. The fact that the element of will is more 
prominent in one than the other does not destroy the 
obligation to obey in the case of the son. The authority 
may be brought to bear in different aspects and degrees, 


442 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


but the authority exists. And the same may be said to 
some extent as to the question, How is obedience to be 
rendered? The principle which grounds it and should 
regulate its expression, in either case — that of an inno- 
cent servant and an innocent son, is love; for the greatest 
of teachers has summed up obedience in love, and an 
inspired apostle has said that love is the fulfilling of the 
law. It is true that that great principle may operate 
in different degrees upon a servant and upon a son; but 
the principle remains the same. Nor can it be shown 
that the imitation of God, as a duty and a privilege, is 
confined to the obedience of a son. Surely a servant 
may, and is bound to, imitate the virtues of his 
master. 

But if the ground be taken that, on God’s side, the 
principles upon which he proceeds, and the methods 
which he pursues, are different in the respective cases 
of retributive and disciplinary government —so dif- 
ferent that they cannot be harmonized in relation to the 
same subject of rule, I answer, that it is admitted all 
this holds good in reference to sinners. The question 
now is, however, not in regard to sinners, but to man 
in innocence. The relations in the two cases are so 
widely different that they are not susceptible of common 
predication, so far as the matter in hand is concerned. 
On the supposition that Adam had maintained his 
integrity during his time of trial, it is conceded that he 
would have been justified, that is, confirmed as a servant, 
upon the principle of retributive justice. He would 
have secured the promised reward in consequence of 
personal obedience. Now, on the supposition that he 


a 


Tue Doctrine oF ADOPTION. 443 


had stood, on what principle would he have been adopted 
— if adopted at all— except upon the same principle 
of retributive justice? Would he not have secured, on 
the ground of personal obedience, the promised reward 
of confirmation in the family of God? To say that he 
would have been justified legally, but adopted gra- 
ciously, would be to destroy the nature of the covenant 
of works; for surely those who say that he would have 
been adopted, hold that he would have attained that 
great reward in consequence of the provisions of that 
covenant. The principle and the methods upon which 
God would have proceeded would have been the same, if 
we suppose that Adam would have been justified, that is, 
had ceased to be contingently related to God as a servant, 
and that he would have been adopted, that is, ceased to 
be contingently related to God asa son. It is also clear 
that God exercised love as well as justice toward man in 
innocence. 

It is said that the ends proposed by the two species of 
government are different and inconsistent with each 
other. But again the different postures of the subjects 
of rule must be kept in view. One cannot be the subject 
of a penalty and of fatherly discipline at the same time. 
But one contingently related to the penalty of law may 
be conceived as expecting the reward of legal obedience, 
and at the same time expecting the fruits of parental 
discipline — discipline, not as corrective, but as per- 
fective. To say that “the end of moral discipline is the 
improvement of the subject; the end of moral govern- 
ment is to maintain the authority of law,” is not to prove 
that both these ends were not contemplated in God’s rule 


444 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





over man in innocence. What is there incompatible 
between them ? 

It is contended that they differ in their penalties — in 
the one, the correction of faults, in the other, the punish- 
ment of crimes. But supposing man in innocence to 
have been contingently related to God as son as well as 
servant, the disobedience of the son would have been a 
crime of the deepest dye and deserving of severest pun- 
ishment. The faults of Gcd’s redeemed children are 
crimes, and crimes all the more aggravated because of 
the filial relation, but the reason why they are not visited 
with retributive penalties is that Christ bore the penalty 
in full for them. They are not, like Adam in innocence, 
contingently related to the divine favor. 

It is further urged that “righteousness in the one is a 
qualification, in the other a right.” How this can be 
maintained by those who admit that Adam might have 
been adopted, it is difficult to see. In his case, the quali- 
fication for and the right to adoption would have coin- 
cided. The covenant imparted to him the right, not 
orinally possessed, to qualify himself for justification 
and adoption alike — for confirmation in God’s rectoral 
and paternal favor. 

(2) The difficulty is raised that if Adam were a son 
of God by creation, it would be incompetent to say that 
he might have been adopted, since adoption supposes 
the transfer of its subject from one relation to another ; 
but that the way was clear for his adoption if, in inno- 
cence, he were simply a servant. He would by adoption 
have been transferred from the relation of servant to 
that of son. The first obvious answer which may be 


Tuer Doctrine or ADOPTION. 445 


made to this position is, that if Adam had by adoption 
been removed from the relation of a servant to that of a 
son, he would have ceased to be a servant. His relation 
to God’s rectoral government would have been destroyed. 
The consequence refutes the doctrine. Further, justi- 
fication, as distinguished from adoption, would, on this 
supposition, have been impossible; for it is a servant 
or subject who is capable of justification. 

In the second place, it may be doubted whether the 
application of the term adoption be strictly correct as to 
Adam’s possible reward. He would have been confirmed 
_in the fatherly favor of God. The believer in Christ is 
with strict propriety affirmed to be adopted, since he is 
formally and authoritatively translated from the family 
of Satan into the family of God: his relations are 
changed. But on the supposition that Adam was a son, 
as he was, in innocence, contingently related to God in 
that capacity, had he stood he would have been removed 
from that contingent relation into one fixed beyond con- 
tingency, and such a change would in some sense have 
been due to adoption. Confirmation of his standing in 
God’s house would have ensued, and that is one of the 
essential features of adoption. This view saves us from 
the supposition implicated in the other doctrine — 
namely, that Adam would have ceased to be a servant 
of God, had he been elevated to the condition of a son. 
It represents his possible confirmation as twofold: that 
of a servant and that of a son. And in this regard 
his condition, had he been confirmed, would have 
been precisely analogous to that of believers in Christ, 
who are both servants and sons, established beyond 


446 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





contingency in the rectoral and paternal favor of 
God. 

(3) It is objected, that the effect of creation is simply 
to constitute the relation of a subject of moral govern- 
ment, not that also of ason. It is forgotten by those who 
urge this objection that regeneration makes us new 
creatures, and as such new subjects of God’s moral goy- 
ernment, but at the same time, as a creative act consti- 
tutes us sons of God; for he who is born of God is surely 
God’s son. But as this re-creation does not of itself — 
that is, apart from adoption — fix us in God’s family 
beyond contingency, so neither did the creation of man 
as innocent, supposing it to have made him a son, con- 
firm him in the fatherly favor of God. If the new 
creation restores us to sonship, why could not the first 
creation have instituted sonship? And if the sonship 
restored in the new creation needs to be confirmed, and 
is susceptible of confirmation by adoption, why should 
not the same be true of the first ? 

(4) It may be objected, that if Adam had been a son 
of God, the filial relation would have, as the higher, 
absorbed and rendered superfluous the lower one of 
servant. This is a mere speculation, and it is vacated of 
force by the fact that believers in Christ do not lose the 
relation of servants of God in consequence of being sons 
of God. It is true that the one relation is higher than 
the other, but it does not displace it. They are not 
merely servants, but they are servants still. Hence 
forth, said the Lord Jesus to his disciples, “I call you not 
servants, but friends.” Did he mean to say that they 
did not continue to be his servants? Why, then, did 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 447 


the apostles, in their inspired epistles, term themselves 
servants of Christ? “Simon Peter, a servant and an 
apostle of Jesus Christ”; so begins his second epistle ; 
and Paul, in the opening passage of Romans calls him- 
self “a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle.” 
If this was true of the apostles, why should Adam’s 
filial relation have swallowed up and destroyed that of 
a servant ? 

It may be replied to this, that the apostles were ser- 
vants only officially. But, in the first place, the conces- 
sion is made in the objection itself that they were in 
some sense servants, notwithstanding the fact that they 
were sons. In the second place, if God remain the ruler 
of men after they become children by his grace, the 
employment of them in specific service of an official 
character is exactly in harmony with the natural and 
indestructible obligation which characterizes them in the 
general. Let us suppose that a king appoints his son to 
discharge some official service. The son could not plead 
his filial relation as inconsistent with the duty thus 
assigned him by his father. For the appointment would 
be made by the father not as father, but as sovereign; 
and the general obligation arising from the relation of 
the son as subject would underlie and enforce his specific 
duty to perform the official service supposed to be 
assigned him. Angels might have been commissioned as 
apostles, and in that ease the special office laid upon 
them would have grounded its sanctions primarily in the 
relation of subjects they sustain to God and the obliga- 
tion arising out of it. 

The objection proceeds upon the unwarranted assump- 


448 Discussions or THEroLoGicaL QuEsTIONS. 





tion that the apostles ceased to be subjects of the divine 
government when they were constituted sons of God by 
adoption, and that the obligation upon them to perform 
apostolic service sprang alone from arbitrary appoint 
ment. It is true that they could not have come under 
this special obligation had they not been commissioned 
to perform so special a service. But having ‘been com- 
missioned to discharge it, the law of obedience in the 
general enforced the performance of the particular duty. 
Adam could not have felt the obligation resting on him 
as a federal head and representative of his seed, had not 
God appointed him to that momentous office. But hay- 
ing been appointed, the law of obedience embedded in 
the very essence of his nature obliged him to the dis- 
charge of that specific trust. 

It will not be denied that the apostles, and all officers 
of the church as well, received their appointments from 
Christ as king of Zion. But all the adopted children of 
God are subjects of Christ’s kingdom. And however 
the relations of children and subjects may seem to differ, 
they certainly co-exist in the case of every believer. 
God’s family is precisely Christ’s kingdom. This is one 
of the paradoxes of the gospel, no more difficult to appre- 
hend than the declaration that sin and holiness co-exist 
in the personality of the believer, or than those which 
Paul,.in the fourth chapter of second Corinthians predi- 
cates of himself and his fellow-apostles. The adopted 
children of God the Father are the subjects and servants 
of Christ as mediatorial king. The laws by which they 
are governed are God’s laws administered in the hands 
of the mediatorial sovereign. For “we are not without 


Tue Dootrint oF ADOPTION. 449 


law to God, but under the law to Christ.” The primal 
authority is not in Christ as mediator; it is in God 
essentially considered. But Christ as mediator has by 
his work acquired the right under the covenant to dis- 
pense these laws, as conditioned by redemption, to those 
whom the Father gave to him, and whom he has pur- 
chased for himself by his blood. This particular section 
of God’s subjects are, in consequence of the mediatorial 
work of Christ, peculiarly related to God through him. 
Through Christ they are introduced into the favor of 
God as ruler, and at the same time into the regard of 
God as Father. To the rectoral government of God they 
stand related through Christ as priest and king; to the 
fatherly rule of God they stand related through Christ 
as their brother. As the subjects of Christ they are the 
accepted subjects of God; as the brethren of Christ they 
are the accepted children of God. The family of God, 
then, is coincident with the kingdom of Christ. They 
are the same thing viewed under different relations. 
The conclusion is generally that believers are both chil- 
dren and subjects or servants; and particularly that the 
apostles were not servants of Christ merely because of 
their appointment to office. 

In the third place, the language in which Peter and 
Paul speak of themselves opposes the supposition that 
they were servants simply as apostles. Peter calls him- 
self a servant of Christ and an apostle, evidently imply- 
ing that he was a servant before he was an apostle, and 
that his apostolic service was superadded to his service 
considered as generic. Paul still more clearly intimates 

29 


450 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuEsrions. 


the same thing when he styles himself “a servant of 
Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle.” 

In the fourth place, this question is settled “a the 
explicit testimony of Scripture. There can be no dispute 
about the teaching of the Old Testament. Believers are 
continually called servants of God. God calls Moses his 
servant, and Moses styles Abraham, Isaae and Jacob 
servants of God. So of the other Old Testament saints ; 
and I agree with Calvin that the Old Testament saints 
were adopted sons of God. The New Testament is 
equally explicit. Jesus calls his disciplies and all his 
followers servants. ‘Who then is that faithful and wise 
servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so 
doing?” “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The apostles didacti- 
cally express the same view. “But now being made free 
from sin and become servants to God.” “He that is 
called being free is Christ’s servant.” “As free, and 
not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but 
as the servants of God.” “To show unto his servants 
things which must shortly come to pass.” “Hath 
avenged the blood of his servants.” . “Praise our God, 
all ye his servants.” “There shall be no more curse, and 
his servants shall serve him.” All believers are called 
the servants of God in this world, and are declared to be 
his servants in the world to come. They are, therefore, 
servants and sons now and forever. 

Tt is objected also to the view I have presented, that 
man can only come into filial relationship to God by 
virtue of union to Christ, and a participation by adop- 
tion of his sonship. Adam, consequently, could not have 


THe Doctrine or ADOPTION. 451 


been a son of God, for he was not united to Christ. To 
this I reply: 

(1) That this view-cannot be urged without destroying 
the theory in regard to man’s relation, in innocence, to 
God, which is held by the objectors. For they hold that 
had he stood during his period of probation, he would 
have been not only justified, but adopted. Either, then, 
he would have been adopted without union to the Son 
of God, and the objector contradicts himself; or he 
would have been adopted in consequence of it, and he 
answers himself. On the first supposition he contradicts 
himself, for he asserts that no man can be a son of God 
without union to the divine Son, and yet that Adam 
might have been, and all his posterity might have shared 
the relation with him. On the second supposition he 
answers himself, for if Adam might have become an 
adopted son of God by virtue of union with the divine 
Son, he gives up his doctrine that the incarnation of 
Christ was the indispensable condition of man’s becom- 
ing a son of God. 

(2) Those who deny that Adam was in innocence a 
son of God ought to exclude adoption from the proposed 
reward of the covenant of works, and limit it to justifica- 
tion. All that the covenant propounded as reward was 
life — indefectible life; that is, confirmation in holiness 
and happiness. Now, if he were simply a servant, all 
that can be fairly collected from this promise was con- 
firmation as a servant. This is clear, unless it can be 
shown by other testimonies of Scripture that adoption 
was an element of the promised reward. That, I am 
disposed to think, cannot be done. One fails to see how, 





452 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


upon the hypothesis of man’s bare relation in innocence 
to God as a servant, he could have secured adoption as 
the reward of obedience. 

But on the supposition that he was a son as well as a 
servant, standing contingently in each relation, his ful- 
filment of his probation would have secured him life in 
respect to each of them — that is, confirmation both as a 
servant and a son — indefectible holiness and happiness 
in both relations. Confirmation as a son might not have 
been precisely adoption; but in taking that view we 
would be relieved of the necessity of proving from Serip- 
ture that adoption, strictly considered, was a part of the 
reward promised in the covenant of works. And in that 
way adoption would be conceded all the glory which 
belongs to it as a benefit secured to his people by the 
-ever-blessed Son of God: a formal translation of be- 
lievers in him from the condition of children of the devil 
to that of children of God. 

It may be contended that had Adam been a son of 
God, as well as servant, this inconsistency would emerge, 
that he would have secured justification, in one relation, 
as a debt, and that he would have inherited the blessing 
of adoption as a fruit of mere grace. An inheritance, 
this objection assumes, cannot be won. 

I answer that there is here a confusion — and it is a 
very common one — between the status of a covenant 
head and representative on the one hand, and that of his 
constituents on the other. It is plain that if Adam had 
stood during his time of trial, his posterity would not 
have secured justification on the ground of their con- 
scious and subjective obedience to law. They would 


Tur Doctrine oF ADOPTION. 453 


have inherited justification. It would have been the 
bestowment of grace to them. So would it have been 
also in regard to their confirmation as children of God. 
That is certainly true of Christ’s seed. 

But so far as the representatives were concerned, it 
may be argued, from the analogy between them, that as 
Christ by his obedience won the blessing of adoption for 
his seed, the same might have been true in the case of 
Adam. In either case the inheritance was suspended 
upon the fulfilment of the condition of the covenant 
under which each acted. But the inheritance secured by 
the obedience of the representative would become a gra- 
tuitous boon to his constituents, so far as their own con- 
scious and subjective agency is concerned. 


V. 


Dr. Candlish! and Dr. Thornwell maintain that the 
fact of creation does not render God, in any proper sense, 
the Father of man; but that the relation which man 
sustained to God was simply that of a subject and 
servant. 

1. Now, it must be admitted that these relations are 
not exclusive of each other. Christ, in the estate of his 
humiliation, was both a Son and a servant; and the saint 
is likewise both a son and a servant at one and the same 
time. 

2. It does not follow from the mere existence of the 
filial relation, that it implies indefectible obedience, or 


1These remarks were written before Dr. Crawford’s reply to 
Dr. Candlish was seen. 


" 


454 Discussions or THEonoarcat Questions. 


confirmed favor with God. Contingency may charac- 
terize the obedience of a son, as well as that of a servant, 


unless he has been confirmed in standing by a federal — 


act. Each of these relations may receive confirmation 
as conditioned upon perfect obedience during a limited 
time of probation. Both Dr. Candlish and Dr. Thorn- 
well appear to hold that from the nature of the relation, 
the standing of a son in his father’s favor is uncontir- 
gent, that he could never lapse finally from his father’s 
regards and be by him condemned. This is certainly 
true of the adopted children of God in Christ Jesus, but 
to my mind, it is not proved to be true of one who is a 
son by nature. These eminent writers confound natural 
and adoptive sonship. 

3. On the supposition that man originally sustained 
both of these relations to God, the fall involved him in 
the double guilt of a disobedient servant and a disobe- 
dient son; and in that view of the case there would seem 
to have been peculiar fitness in a constitution of recoy- 
ering grace, by which the substitute who should by his 
obedience secure the re-establishment of the sinner in 
God’s favor should obey as a son and a servant alike. 
That was the case in the obedience of Christ. 

4. Dr. Candlish appears to admit, and Dr. Thornwell 
definitely contends, that had Adam maintained his in- 
tegrity during the probation assigned him, he would 
have been elevated to the condition of a son, and that 
this elevation would have been accomplished by adoption. 
Dr. Candlish thinks that the holy angels have been 
admitted to the relation of sons by adoption. Now, there 
is nothing inconceivable in the supposition that Adam 


Tue Doctrine oF ADOPTION. 455 


was a son of God, by nature, because he was eligible to 
sonship by adoption; for this reason, that if we can 
indicate any one instance in which God has done this, 
viz., elevated to a higher degree of sonship by adoption 
one who was previously in a lower degree of sonship by 
nature, we destroy the antecedent improbability which 
may be supposed to lie in the way of this being done. 
In the case of each regenerated sinner, God does this. 
He elevates one who by a spiritual birth is made his 
child to a position in which he is formally recognized 
and treated as a child, and authoritatively invested with 
an inviolable heirship in God’s family and with all the 
distinctive rights of children in his house. There is, 
therefore, nothing in the nature of.things which sug- 
gests a valid probability against the supposition that 
Adam may have been made God’s son by creation, any 
more than there is such a probability against our being 
made God’s children by a new creation. The presump- 
tion would seem to lie in favor of that supposition on the 
ground of analogy; and also from the consideration that 
it is likely that in God’s dealings with his creatures the 
natural relation of sonship precedes the adoptive — 1. e., 
that God only adopts into his family those to whom he 
has previously imparted the nature and the disposition 
of children; adoption not, in the first instance, consti- 
tuting the filial relation (that is, done by creation either 
natural or supernatural), but authoritatively and form- 
ally recognizing it. 

It would appear that the notion of a natural filial 
relation is the fundamental conception of that relation. 
In the order of thought and of nature, it comes first, and 


456 Discusstons or TurotocicaL Questions. 


the adoptive filial relation second, as subordinate to it 
and grounded in it. The adoptive may actually secure 
greater honor and privilege, and in that sense may be 
conceived as the greater, but the very notion of it springs 
from the natural. Indeed, it would seem to be impos- 
sible to conceive the adoptive without the previous con- 
ception of the natural. So beyond a doubt is it in regard 
to these relations as human ; the only question is whether 
this holds when the human being is considered as sus- 
taining the filial relation to God. Now, the only way 
in which we, aside from revelation, could form the 
notion of the parental and filial relationship ‘between 
God and man is through the analogy of human expe- 
rience — just as we actually form our conceptions of 
God’s attributes and relations in general from the exist- 
ence of some likeness to them in ourselves. In the case 
of the first man it was different, but we cannot legiti- 
mately argue from his case to ours in this matter, in 
view of the fact that he enjoyed an immediate revelation 
from God. God, for example, told the first man that he 
was his creature and his subject; and if he were also a 
son, God informed him of the fact. Then when the 
human relations were historically developed, man 
acquired clearer conceptions of what had been only 
matters of divine testimony. First he believed; and 
then he empirically knew. 

The probable inference from all this is, that Adam 
first sustained the natural filial relation before the pos- 
sibility of his adoption could be realized. 

5. Dr. Candlish contends that “the two relations [of 
servant and son] cannot be conceived of as originally 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 457 


combined.” Why not? If the conception is impossible 
— that is, if we cannot conceive the possibility of the | 
fact — how is it that the combination of the two rela- 
tions is a fact in the ease of Christ, as mediator, and in 
the case of the believer in Christ? Dr. Candlish admits 
the co-existence of the two relations in the same person, 
in each of these instances. There is, then, e concesso, 
no impossibility in the nature of things that the two 
relations should co-exist in one person. Why may not 
one person sustain two distinct, but associated relations ? 
If this be so, it must be shown that in Adam’s case there 
was some peculiarity which created the impossibility. 
What was that peculiarity? If it cannot be indicated, 
then Adam’s case must fall under the operation of the 
principle that it is possible that the two relations may 
co-exist in the same person —a principle which has 
been actually exemplified in the case of Christ and be- 
lievers in him. 

6. Dr. Candlish farther says that Adam must have 
been dealt with either as a guilty subject or an undutiful 
son. Why? Why may he not have been dealt with as 
guilty both of filial and servile disobedience? And why 
may not his disobedience as a son have aggravated his 
disobedience as a subject? As the same person may be 
both magistrate and father, so the same person may be 
both subject and son. The cases are correlative. In the 
latter case disobedience would both be that of a subject 
and son, and in the former, punishment would both be 
by a ruler and a father. 

7. Dr. Candlish assumes that in the case of filial dis- 
obedience the only punishment that could be inflicted 


458 Discussions or THEoLtogroaL Questions. 


would be fartherly discipline, and as that is not destruc- 
tive, the co-existence of it with retributive punishment 
is impossible. This would require proof. If, without 
extraordinary arrangements, the standing of a son would 
be contingent, then, without them, the result of filial 
disobedience would be permanent. Dr. Candlish begs 
the question when he applies to the natural filial relation 
what is peculiar to the adoptive. 

8. The doctrine of Calvin, enounced in the passage 
prefixed to the work of Dr. Candlish, that God is a father 
to angels or men, only with respect to his only-begotten 
Son, cannot be pleaded as supporting the view that 
neither angels nor men can be, in any sense, considered 
as sons of God except by adoption. Lord Bacon, in his 
confession of faith, holds that God cannot create, or hold 
intercourse with creatures, except with respect to his 
Son as mediator. With that view Calvin appeared to 
coincide; and in this passage all he can be fairly inter- 
preted as teaching is, that the creature can sustain no 
filial relation to God apart from some connection with 
~ the Son of God. If, for example, the angels, at creation, 
were sons of God, or Adam at creation was a son of Gud, 
they were not so without some respect to the only- 
begotten Son. But this does not necessarily involve such 
an adoption as takes place in the case of the saint whose 
human nature the Son assumed, and who, in consequence 
of union to him, is admitted into God’s family. 

9. Dr. Candlish remarks (Supplement, p. 162) that 
“the popish dogma [of the donum superadditum] lies 
rather on the side of those who advocate an original 
sonship, if they allow it to have been compromised or 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 459 


forfeited by the fall.” This does not follow. Whatever 
endowments God was pleased to bestow upon man in 
innocency, although expressions of his grace, were not 
supernatural endowments. They were a part of the 
furniture of his original nature. For example, all Cal- 
vinists admit that the addition of covenant arrangements 
to a scheme of pure moral government—of naked law— 
was a signal mark of God’s kindness which did not result 
from the necessities of man’s original relation to him. 
This was the fruit of grace, but they would not allow 
that this additional arrangement, although supernatu- 
rally revealed, was supernatural in itself considered. 
It was an element of natural religion ; and man’s natural 
ability was all it required. So, if God were pleased to 
recognize Adam as a son and to confer upon him the 
endowments proper to the filial relation, the case would 
still have been in the region of the natural and not of 
the supernatural. The promise of adoption would have 
been supernaturally revealed; but its actual attainment 
would not have demanded supernaturally imparted 
strength. The very question is, Was the relation of son- 
ship, in some sense, natural? If it be answered in the 
affirmative, then all the gifts and endowments bestowed 
on Adam in that relation were natural. Let us suppose 
with Dr. Thornwell (and Dr. Candlish appears to agree 
with him) that had Adam maintained his obedience 
during the time of his trial, he would have been adopted 
into the nearer relation of a son, still this higher boon 
of adopting grace would not have been supernatural. Ii 
would have been in the line of the natural. The nature 
of Adam, as it was, would have been developed, elevated, 


460 Discussions or THEoLoaicaL Questions. 


confirmed; there would have been no necessity for the 
introduction of a supernatural element. The whole case 
would have occurred under the operation of the covenant 
of works. That being admitted, the supernatural ele- 
ment is excluded. That element we are accustomed to 
confine to the covenant of grace, and surely had Adam 
been confirmed in life and adopted into God’s family, 
that result would not have been due to the introduction 
of the covenant of grace. All would have happened as 
legitimately actualizing the possibilities of the covenant 
of works. 

The whole difficulty arises from Dr. Candlish’s limita- 
tion of the idea of sonship to adoption. If Adam had 
been adopted at the first, and then have been supposed 
to have fallen from that relation, the consequences de- 
picted by Dr. Candlish would ensue. But the case is an 
unsupposable one. None but papists hold that Adam 
was, in innocency, an adopted son of God. The only 
question is whether he was, by creation, made a son of 
God with the possibility of confirmation in that relation 
conditioned upon perfect obedience. The two states are 
different. Just as in the case of the saint, there is first 
the making of him a child by regeneration—re-begetting 
— and then the adopting of him as a child into God’s 
family. In the latter case, the adoption is not condi- 
tioned upon his obedience, as in Adam’s case. The case 
is supernatural. The adoption of the believer is con- 
ditioned upon Christ’s obedience, and, therefore, to him, 
is not contingent at all, or even conditional in the strict 
sense. The only condition to him is faith, and that, as 
a gift of God won by Christ for him, is certain to be per- 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 461 


formed. But the element of contingency or condition- 
ality is accidental. What is important to be observed 
is that there may be sonship previous to adoption, and 
that sonship by creation or begetting is one thing, and 
sonship by adoption is another thing. One is in order 
to the other, but they are not the same. Adoption form- 
alizes the previous real relation of sonship. It recog- 
nizes it, imposes upon it new sanctions, invests it with 
new rights, and fences it with guarantees of security. 

The reference by Dr. Candlish to Witsius on the Cove- 
nants (Vol. I., Bk. I., Chap. III., § 26) confirms this 
view of Dr. Candlish’s position. All that Witsius says 
is in opposition to the Romanist position, maintained by 
Bellarmin, that Adam in innocency was an adopted son 
of God. 

It is curious that Witsius admits a sort of sonship by 
nature (Vol. I., Bk. IIL, Chap. X., “Of Adoption,” 
§ 3). “But they [believers] are not so [sons of God] 
only on this account that God, as Creator [italics his] 
gave them being and life (Mal. ii. 10), and as Preserver 
supports and provides them with all necessaries (Acts 
Xvil. 25, 28).” Here the word “only” is an explicit 
declaration of the author’s opinion that in one sense men 
are children of God who are not in another. They are 
children by nature, but may not be by regeneration and 
adoption. And he plainly teaches that those who are 
regenerated and adopted were previously, in some sense, 
children of God. What becomes of Dr. Candlish’s cita- 
tion of Witsius’ authority ? 

10. Dr. Candlish (Supp., page 27) holds that the sin 
of Adam is adequately described as a “transgression of 


462 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


law.” This may be admitted. He then affirms that such 
a sin is possible only in the case of a subject of law; and 
that if filial sin were committed by Adam, no atonement 
has ever been made for it, 7. e., for the sin as filial sin. 
Now, the former of these positions may be safely ad- 
mitted, and yet it would not follow that Adam may not 
have sinned as a son as well as a subject, simply con- 
sidered. What is law? The rule expressing to an in- 
ferior the will of his superior. This is its generic 
signification ; but under this are included several species, 
united under the genus, but differentiated from each 
other. A father may command as well as a ruler or 
magistrate. If the father has the right to command, the 
son is under obligation to obey. If he disobey, he trans- 
gresses law. Now it is conceivable that the rights of 
magistrate and father may unite in the same person, and 
it is conceivable, also, that the same material act may 
be commanded by that person both as magistrate and as 
father. In that case disobedience is a transgression both 
of rectoral and parental law. 

But, if the ground be taken that in such a case, the 
father is really a ruler and the son a subject, and so the 
act is a transgression by a subject of the law of the ruler ; 
this may be freely granted, and then the question is 
settled. For, ex hypothesi, the father is the ruler, and 
disobedience to the ruler is disobedience to the father. 
Now, if it be supposed that Adam was a son as well as a 
subject of God, then, without some express information 
given him that the prohibition as to the tree of know- 
ledge issued from God as king, and not as father, his 
disobedience was to God as sovereign and as father in 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 463 


the same act. God’s authority in both respects would 
have bound him and his sin would have been a trans- 
gression of the law that obliged him as a subject and as 
a son alike. What is there in the nature of the filial 
relation of man to God which exempts filial disobedience 
from the guiltiness of sin as a transgression of law? 
And without redemptive provision made to meet the case 
what can save the perpetrator of filial disobedience to 
God from a penal and everlasting doom? In the case 
of the transgressions of God’s adopted sons in Christ, 
nothing screens them from the hell which they intrinsi- 
cally merit, but the provisions of the covenant of redemp- 
tion operating through the blood and intercessions of 
their great high priest. 

It is difficult to understand Dr. Candlish’s position in 
this matter — to harmonize him with himself. First, 
his reasoning is, sin is the transgression of the law. 
None but subjects can transgress law. Adam’s sin was 
a transgression of the law. Therefore, Adam sinned 
simply as a subject. Whatever may be thought of the 
truth of the argument, the meaning is clear. 

But, secondly, he says, if Adam committed filial sin, 
then no atonement has been made for it. Now, if filial 
sin can only be removed by atonement, then filial sin is 
a transgression of law; for atonement, Dr. Candlish 
contends, is only possible for transgressions of law. So 
it would appear that sons, as well as subjects simply, 
may be transgressors of law. And so, farther, if Adam 
was a son his sin as son was a transgression of law. And 
if atonement was made for all his transgressions of law, 
it was made for his filial sin. Dr. Candlish’s positions 


7" 


464 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


do not hang together; or they have been misconceived. 
His book is referred to as evidence against the latter 
supposition. 

Moreover, Dr. Candlish appears to hold that a son 
who is guilty of disobedience to his father is the subject 
of fatherly discipline only. Retribution is out of the 
question. This is simply extraordinary, when God is 
considered as the father. The Doctor is not at liberty to 
confound matters, which are distinct, by arbitrarily as- 
suming that the only possible sort of son is an adopted 
son. . He must be recalled to definition. What is son- 
ship? is a question he has not answered. He quietly 
assumes that it is the result of adoption alone. The 
assumption cannot pass muster. But suppose that if 
Adam had been a son and had committed filial sin, there 
would have been necessary an atonement rendered by a 
son in order to expiate the sins of a son— was not 
Christ a Son as well as a servant in offering atonement? 
So Dr. Candlish himself holds. Where is the difficulty 

11. Admit that Adam was a son under the conditions 
of a servant in regard to his confirmation, and the diffi- 
culty appearing to encumber the hypothesis of his filial 
relation would disappear. He was a minor; and the 
condition of his attaining majority as a son with all the 
rights belonging to it was the maintenance of his in- 
tegrity in God’s house during the time of trial. Failing 
that, he would be cast out and excommunicated. He 
was an heir; and the condition of his actually possessing 
the inheritance was perfect obedience during the as- 
signed probation. Failing that, he would be disin- 
herited. 


Tue Doctrine or Avorrion. 465 


The case of Adam in this respect somewhat resembled 
that of the Old Testament believers — that is, in ths 
fact of immaturity of both sonship and heirship. They 
like Adam were minors and heirs, and so, as Paul says 
in the fourth chapter of Galatians, scarcely differed frora 
servants. Paul does not state that they were simply 
servants. On the contrary, he distinctly states that they 
were sons and heirs; but they were minor sons and 
heirs under a peculiar bondage to tutors and governors 
until the time for attaining majority and fully possess- 
ing the inheritance should come. In this respect their 
case was like Adam’s. He was a minor son and heir. 
But in another, and an important and obvious respect, 
the two cases were entirely unlike. The attainment of 
majority and the actual possession of the inheritance, 
in Adam’s case, was conditioned upon a perfect legal 
obedience during a specified probation. In the case of 
the Old Testament believers there was a perfect absence 
of any such condition. Their full realization of the 
promised blessings was conditioned upon Christ’s perfect 
obedience; and, therefore, there was in their case no 
such contingency as obtained in Adam’s. 

There is also another respect in which the two cases 
widely differed. The Old Testament believers were 
minor heirs not because they did not in any degree 
actually possess the promised blessings — the inheri- 
tance. They did in some degree enter upon it. They 
were the regenerated children of God, and I am disposed 
to think that they were also his adopted children. They 
must have been regenerated, or they would have had no 


spiritual life, and in that case, they could not have been 
30 


466 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


believers, since faith is a fruit and function of the 
spiritual life. But being believers, they were justified. 
That is plain. There is, however, no greater difficulty 
in supposing them adopted than in admitting that they 
were justified. The difficulty in each case is that Christ 
had not yet appeared. His obedience was not yet ren- 
dered; and his obedience in the flesh unto death was the 
only ground upon which they could be received to God’s 
favor either as sovereign or as father. They believed 
the promise of God which guaranteed the reality of that 
future obedience, and were justified in anticipation of 
the actual occurrence of the great facts of redemption. 
Why not adopted in the same way? But though justified 
and adopted, they were under bondage, and the full 
enjoyment of the liberties and privileges of the New 
Testament believers were not, and perhaps could not 
have been, conferred upon them. The spirit of the ser- 
vant was more prominent in them than the spirit of the 
adopted child — of the subject rather than of the son. 
In Adam’s case, there was no justification and no adop- 
tion. They waited in certain assurance that the full 
inheritance would be theirs. He waited in uncertainty. 
He might never attain to it. And so it actually was. 


SuBsEQUENT REMARKS UPON Dr. CanpiisH’s PostrTion. 


1. Dr. Candlish concedes that Adam was potentially 
a son of God. If by this mode of expression he means 
that Adam was possessed of the germ of sonship, which 
needed to be developed, and might have been developed, 
by the circumstances by which he was environed, by the 


Tue Doctrine or ApopTion. 467 


education to which he was subjected, and by the promis- 
sory provisions of the covenant of works — one cannot 
but think that he gives up the question. For his oppo- 
nents do not contend that Adam was endowed with son- 
ship in the fullest and richest sense of the term, but 
hold that it depended upon his fidelity during the time 
of trial assigned him whether he would attain to it in its 
highest form — whether he would be confirmed in his 
relation as a son, and fixed forever with his posterity i 
God’s paternal regards. 

If he means by Adam’s potential sonship merely his 
capability of becoming a son, of passing out of the con- 
dition of a subject and servant in which he was created 
into a wholly new and different condition — namely, 
that of a son — the concession has no value. It is really 
nothing more than what he is understood to affirm: that 
Adam was created simply a subject and servant, and not 
a son in any sense; but that he might have been elevated 
by adoption into the relation of a son. The apparent 
admission exercises no modifying influence upon the 
question, but leaves it precisely as before. 

2. The position that had Adam stood during his time 
of trial he would have been adopted as a son of God is 
out of analogy to any definite teaching of the Scriptures 
concerning the nature and office of adoption; and this 
in two respects: 

(1) The doctrine of the New Testament is that, in the 
order of production, regeneration precedes adoption, and 
is in order to it. “But as many as received him, to them 
gave he power (the right or privilege) to become the 
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 


468 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John i. 12, 
13.) Here we are taught that upon those who received 
Christ by faith was conferred the authority, right, privi- 
lege, to become the sons of God. But we are also told 
that those who believed were born of God. They were 
regenerated in order to exercise faith. No Calvinist can 
hold that faith precedes regeneration. The passage, 
then, to him, cannot teach that we become the regene- 
rated sons of God by faith. It must mean that having 
been regenerated, and thus become born sons of God, we 
believe in Christ, and thus become his adopted sons. 
Regeneration, in the order of production, precedes faith, 


and, in that order, faith precedes adoption. The same - 


truth is delivered in Galatians iii. 26, “For ye are all 
the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” 

The new birth, then, which in the first instance makes 
us sons of God, implants in us the nature, the disposi- 
tions, the tempers of children, at least in their principle, 
and accordingly we are by regeneration adapted to the 
higher, the confirmed estate of adopted children. We 
are not confirmed as adopted sons before we have 
received the qualities of children by the regenerating 
act. 

But according to the view under consideration Adam 
was not created a son of God, but would have been, had 
he stood, directly elevated to sonship by adoption from 
the mere condition of a servant. He would have been 
constituted a son without having had implanted in him 
the nature and temper of a son, and with only the culture 
of the servant’s dispositions. If it be replied that in 


Tue Docrrine or ADOPTION. 469 


adopting him as a son, God would have created in him 
the filial nature and temper, why contend so strenuously, 
as Dr. Candlish does, against the possibility of one’s 
being constituted a son by creation? In neither case 
would creation have been conditioned upon anything in 
Adam which would have preceded it. This is all the 
more noticeable because the eminent advocates of the 
theory before us insist upon the great difference which 
exists between the dispositions of a servant and those of 
ason. The Scriptures teach us that when God designs 
to adopt one as a son, he first creates in him the filial 
nature — the adopted son is first the new-created son. 
This doctrine is, that had God adopted Adam he would 
not previously have made him a son, would not have 
engendered in him the filial nature, by creation. The — 
two positions are out of analogy with each other. 

(2) The Scriptures further teach us that in adoption 
there is a translation from the family of Satan into the 
family of God. The notion of a change of family enters 
into the conception of adoption —a change which is 
distinguished from that of regeneration in that it is 
legal, formally authoritative and irreversible. The 
point, however, now emphasized is that adoption sup- 
poses the previous existence of the adopted in the family 
of the devil. Jesus said to his opponents, “Ye are of 
your father the devil.” Paul denounced Elymas as a 
“child of the devil.” John, in his second epistle, says, 
“In this the children of God are manifest, and the 
children of the devil.” Those, therefore, whom God 
purposes to save he not only delivers from the kingdom 
of darkness and Satan into the kingdom of his dear Son, 


470 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


but formally transfers from the household of the devil 
and fixes in his own family forever. 

According to the theory in hand, had Adam stood, he 
would have been translated from no family into the 
family of God. He would simply have passed from the 
condition of a servant into that of a son. It is perhaps 
conceivable that such a change may have been effected, 
but it would have been out of analogy to that change 
which the Scriptures denominate adoption. 

It may be said that a human being may adopt his 
servant as his son. That may be true; but it would be 
impossible for him to adopt a servant who was not the 
son of another man. All adoption of which we know 
anything supposes the change of one kind of sonship into 
another. He whom God adopts now was previously his 
own born son by regeneration; and before his new birth 
was a child of the devil. 

3. It is admitted by those who hold the doctrine here 
contended against that man was, by creation, made 4 
subject and servant of God. Now, when he fell into sin 
did he cease to be a subject and servant of God? He 
ceased to be an obedient subject and servant. But the 
physical relation, if the language may be used, must be 
conceded to have continued, and so must the moral obli- 
gations which necessarily sprung from it. Man by sin 
became a revolted subject, a runaway servant, but could 
not cancel the obligations originally resting upon him to 
render service as subject and servant. Hagar, a run- 
away servant, was divinely commanded to return to her 
duty. She was Sarah’s servant still. So with Onesimus. 
Absalom rebelled as a subject, and was guilty of the 


Tur Doctrine or ADOPTION. 471 


most atrocious conduct as a son. But when he had been 
slain in the very flagrancy of his crimes, David poured 
out his pathetic lament for the death of his son. The 
young man died a rebellious subject and a disobedient 
son. The natural relation in which he was born was 
indestructible, and aggravated his crime and doom. 

This leads to the remark that if Adam was created a 
son of God, his fall would no more have destroyed his 
natural sonship than it did his natural relation as subject 
and servant. Once constituted, both these relations must 
as natural, as physical, continue with all the obligations 
arising from them, and with all the penal consequences 
due to their infraction. 

It must be shown that there is some peculiarity in the 
filial relation which lifts it out of the scope of this rea- 
soning, and makes these consequences impossible. What 
is this peculiarity? If it be said that sonship cannot be 
created, the position is absolutely rebutted by regenera- 
tion, which on all hands, by Calvinists, is held to be the 
ereation of spiritual sonship, and by the advocates of the 
theory before us maintained to be the origination of 
sonship in any respect. If it be urged that sonship, in 
any sense, when once constituted is uncontingent and 
not liable to retribution, the case of Absalom and others, 
as also the analogy of human experience, are utterly 
opposed to the hypothesis. And if it be contended that 
no appeal is allowable to human analogy considered 
under proper limitations, there is an end of all reason- 
ing on the subject — either in regard to man’s relation 
to the divine government or to the divine fatherhood. 

4. Does the sinner in his unregenerate estate sustain, 


472 Discussions or THErorocicaL Questions. 


in any sense, a filial relation to God? Legally, he does 
not. His sin has disinherited him. He is under the 
wrath and curse of God. He cannot at the same time 
experience the frown of the Judge, and the smile of the 
Father. Spiritually, he does not. He has lost his holy 
nature, broken the spiritual bond which bound him to 
his Maker, and erased the moral image of God from his 
soul. He has abandoned his Father’s house, renounced 
his Father’s authority, and has become a child of diso- 
bedience, a child of the devil, a child of wrath. 

Is, then, anything left of the filial relation? Is God, 
in any sense, the Father of unregenerate sinners? The 
fact of creation cannot be changed by man’s apostasy. 
The relation springing from’ creation simply is un- 
altered. The natural image of God originally stamped 
upon man’s soul is not, like the moral image, entirely 
obliterated. There is still some natural analogy between 
man and his Maker—an analogy which grounded Paul’s 
argument on Mars Hill to show the hideous absurdity 
of idolatry. How could those worship “gold or silver or 
stone,” who confessed that they were God’s “offspring” ? 

A son, by his wicked rebellion against his father, and 
his inexcusable desertion of him, may, so far as his 
agency goes, annul the filial relation, but he is still, 
naturally speaking, his father’s son, and must be. So, 
the prodigal son, when reduced to extremity, said, “I 
will arise and go to my father.” “And he arose and 
came to his father.” This was succeeded by the kiss of 
reconciliation, the investment with the best robe, and 
the adjustment to the finger of the ring as a pledge of 
fatherly forgiveness and affection, 


Tue Doctrine or Apoprion. 473 


Curistran ADOPTION. 


I pass on now to consider adoption as an element of 
the scheme of redemption. It will be be treated under 
the following heads: First, the Nature and Office of 
adoption; secondly, its Grounds; thirdly, the Rights 
involved in it; fourthly, the Duties resulting from it; 
and fifthly, its Hvidences. 


J. Its Nature and Office. 


Turrettin, followed by Dr. Charles Hodge, regards 
adoption as identical with the second constituent element 
of justification, namely, the acceptance of a person as 
righteous in God’s sight, and his investiture with a 
right and title to eternal life. Dr. A. A. Hodge views 
it as the generic result of which regeneration and justifi- 
cation are the specific factors. He who is regenerated 
and justified is ipso facto adopted. In order to show, 
on the contrary, that adoption has a distinctive and 
peculiar value of its own, it will be compared with 
regeneration and justification, and the features indicated 
in which it is distinguishable from those benefits of 
redemption. 

1. Adoption is not to be confounded with regenera- 
tion. 

(1) Regeneration is not conditioned upon faith; 
adoption is. Regeneration conditions faith—is in order 
to faith. Until we are “born again,” we are “dead in 
trespasses and sins” — utterly destitute of the principle 
of spiritual life. It is, therefore, impossible for us, until 


474 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


regenerated, to perform any of the functions of spiritual 
life, and, therefore, impossible for us to exercise a saving 
faith, since it is one of those functions. We cannot, con- 
sequently, be said to be the regenerated children of God 
by faith. But Paul tells the Galatians that they were 
the children of God by faith, “Ye are all the children of 
God by faith in Christ Jesus.” The conclusion is that 
there is another sense in which we are the children of 
God than by regeneration. We are the adopted children 
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. While faith does not 
condition regeneration, it does condition adoption; just 
as while faith does not condition regeneration, it cer- 
tainly does justification. 

This view is confirmed by the words in the first 
chapter of John’s Gospel, “But as many as received him, 
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even 
to them that believe on his name: which were born, not 
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God.” The passage itself defines receiving 
Christ to be believing on his name, and declares that 
those who believed on him were born of God. But to 
those who, being regenerated, received him by faith he 
gave [not dvvayec, but ovata] authority or right to 
become the sons of God — that is, manifestly, to become 
the adopted sons of God. The power by which we are 
made by regeneration the children of God is not the same 
as the authority conferred upon us to become his chil- 
dren by adoption. Regeneration and adoption are as 
different divine acts as are regeneration and justifica- 
tion. In the one case dynamic power is exerted, in the 
other legal authority is conferred. 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 475 


(2) Regeneration is a creative act, adoption not. By 
regeneration we are created children of God in Christ 
Jesus; by adoption we are, as the already created chil- 
dren of God, authorized to take our places in his family. 

(3) Regeneration is a physical act; adoption a legal 
act. The former affects our nature; the latter, our 
relations. The term physical here, it is almost needless 
to remark, is not used as synonymous with bodily, but 
in the sense of the old theologians as discriminated from 
merely moral. 

(4) Regeneration is a real translation; adoption a 
formal translation. By the former we really become 
God’s children, are really taken out of the family of 
Satan; by the latter we are formally, that is, legally 
and authoritatively, translated from the devil’s family 
into God’s. 

(5) Regeneration adapts us to our place in God’s 
family; adoption formally introduces us into it. By 
the one we have the tempers of children, by the other 
their rights. 

(6) Regeneration makes us God’s children; adoption 
recognizes and treats us as his children — legally admits 
us into the family of God, and invests us with all the 
rights, privileges and immunities of his children. 
Sometimes one born in his father’s house is debarred the 
rights of a child in that house. This never takes place, 
cannot take place, in God’s family. He who by regene- 
ration is a born child, is always by adoption a privileged 
child. 

(7) But if we are constituted children of God by 
regeneration, where is the necessity, the fitness, the 


— COM 


476 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONS. 


propriety, of adoption? Being his children, we will be 
dealt with by him as such. Why adopt one who is 
already a child? To this objection it is replied: 

First. Regeneration does not necessarily and of itself 
confirm us as children of God; adoption does. Regen- 
eration does not necessarily involve an indefeasible right 
to the inheritance of God; adoption does. In regenera- 
tion the heirship of the child is not necessarily uncon- 
tingent and absolute; in adoption it is. As was pointed 
out in the preceding discussion, Adam in innocence was 
a son of God by creation, but he was contingently not 
absolutely related to God’s favor. He needed to be 
confirmed as ason. In like manner, the regenerate man 
is a son of God by a new creation; but he needs to be 
confirmed as a son. That is done by adoption. 


To this, no doubt, it will be rejoined, that the com-— 


parison is not fairly instituted. It ought to be between 
the regenerate and those who would have been children 
of Adam in case he had stood during his time of trial 
and had been confirmed in holiness and happiness. 
They would, on that supposition, have been born par- 
takers of the confirmation conferred upon their federal 
head. So the regenerate are at their spiritual birth 
possessors of the confirmation won for them by Christ 
as their federal head and representative. The rejoinder 
is acute, and, I confess, seems difficult to meet. But 
against it I urge the great and undeniable fact of justi- 
fication. 

As the case was never historically realized, we know 
not what God may have required of the children of 
Adam had he stood and been confirmed. But we have 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 477 


the positive statement of Scripture that the regenerated 
children of God are required to believe — to exercise 
conscious faith—in Christ in order to their being 
justified. It is at least supposable upon inferential 
grounds that the children of Adam, had he been justi- 
fied, would, when they reached the years of voluntary 
activity, have been required to exercise conscious faith 
in him as their federal representative in order to their 
“actual” and complete justification. But however this 
may have been, we know that the regenerated children 
of God do, when adults, exercise conscious faith in 
Christ in order to their “actual” and complete justifiea- 
tion. This is no speculation; it is a scriptural fact. 
Now, the question is inevitable, Why, if they are re- 
quired to exercise faith in Christ in order to be justified, 
may they not be required to do the same in order to be 
adopted? The objection to adoption, upon the ground 
of its want of necessity, would operate with equal force 
in relation to justification. 

The Scriptures settle the question, and leave no room 
for mere reasoning. The regenerate children of God do 
believe in Christ in order to be justified. That cannot 
be gainsaid. With almost equal clearness we are taught 
that they believe in Christ in order to be adopted. 

The difficulty is, to my mind, at least in some measure 
cleared up by the Calvinistic doctrine of virtual justifi- 
eation.1_ The elect children of God — the seed of Christ 


* Otherwise denominated Fundamental, General, Passive, Pac- 
tional, Federal, Representative, Justification. For a statement of 
the doctrine see Witsius, Owen, Halyburton, Thornwell; and, if I 
may take leave to do so, I would refer to a discussion on “The 
Federal Theology: its Import and its Regulative Influence.” 


1 


478 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


— were representatively justified, mm foro Dei, in the 
justification of their federal head and representative. 
In this sense they are, when regenerated, justified in 
Christ. But it pleases God to require of them conscious 
faith in Christ in order to their “actual” justification. 
I see no reason why the eminent theologians who have 
advocated the doctrine of virtual justification should 
not have also contended for that of virtual adoption. 
The principle is the same as to both of the acts of justifi- 
cation and adoption, which stand upon the same foot 
as affecting legal relations in contradistinetion to inward 
character. 

If, then, vital union to Christ effected by regeneratioa 
does not vacate the necessity of actual justification, no 
more does that union destroy the necessity of adoption. 
In our wisdom, we may suppose that regeneration ren- 
ders both unnecessary and superfluous. God judges 
otherwise, and that should satisfy us. In his all-wise 
plan, it is as needful for us to have our legal relations to 
him confirmed beyond contingency by justification and 
adoption, as it is to have the vital principle of holiness 
infused into us by regeneration, and its development 
effected by sanctification. It is true that the vital union 
with Christ operated in regeneration is a guarantee of 
eternal life, but God has ordained that the union with 
Christ is not consummated without justification and 
adoption. They confirm the union with God begun in 
regeneration. 

Secondly. The fitness of adoption, even to our imper- 
fect apprehension, lies also in the fact that although 
translated from Satan’s family into God’s, we still bear 


; 


Tuer Doctrine or ADOPTION. | 479 


within us the old, sinful nature as a badge of our former 
relation. It would be difficult for us, conscious as we 
are of continued sinfulness and pollution, to believe our- 
selves entitled to the immunities and privileges of God’s 
children, were we not assured by him of our adoption 
into his family. This gives us boldness in our access to 
him, and our fellowship with the holy angels and the 
glorified church. 

2. Adoption ought not to be confounded with justi- 
fication. 

(1) They terminate on different relations. In justi- 
fication the relation specially regarded is that of subject 
or servant; in adoption, it is that of child. 

(2) Justification secures the confirmation of the sub- 
ject or servant in God’s rectoral regard —his regard 
as ruler and judge; adoption secures the confirmation 
of the child in God’s paternal regard —his regard as 
Father. 

(3) Both presuppose regeneration; but justification 
legally and formally introduces the regenerated sinner 
into the society of a righteous universe as a community 
or polity; adoption legally and formally introduces the 
regenerated sinner into the society of God’s family. 
Justification confers upon him the rights of a righteous 
man; adoption, the rights of a child. 

(4) A subject of moral government is not, strictly 
speaking, an heir. Heirship supposes another relation 
— that of child. Justification, therefore, does not of 
itself entitle to an inheritance. Adoption does. Justi- 
fication conveys a title to the rewards of moral govern- 
ment; adoption, a title to the inheritance of sons. 


*. 


480 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





Adoption, conseqently, does more than justification, rich 
as are the blessings conferred by the latter. It is grace 
upon grace, rich, exuberant, transcendent grace. 

To all this it may be objected, that if justification 
terminates, on the regenerate, that is, on God’s children, 
it confirms them as children: they are justified children. 
Where, then, is the difference between justification and 
adoption? I answer: ; 

First. The Scriptures make a difference between 


them. They treat adoption as something over and be- 


yond justification. So do the Westminster Standards. 
But why should adoption be thus articulately signalized, 
if it be, as Turrettin and others represent, simply the 
second element in justification, or, as Dr. A. A. Hodge 
makes it, a complex result of which regeneration and 
justification are the components ? 

Secondly. Regeneration is not simply the new crea- 
tion of children of God. It does that, but it also does 
more. It makes us new creatures. It infuses a new 
principle of spiritual life, which is the conditioning law 
of all obedience. Previously to regeneration, we are 
slaves, as well as children, of the devil. We are servants 
of sin, revolted subjects of God’s government, as well as 
his apostate children. If the foregoing argument has 
been of any avail, it has proved that these two relations 
co-exist in us before the new birth. Now, the regene- 
rating act affects us in both these relations. It creates 
the subject anew as well as the son. It introduces vs 
into the family of God — “ye must be born again”; 
but it also introduces us into the kingdom of God — 
“who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and 


Tue Docrrres or Apoption. 481 


hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” 
We are, by regeneration, not only made children of 
God, but new creatures, and renewed subjects and ser. 
vants of his moral government. If this view be correct, 
the position is established, that justification takes the 
new creature as subject and servant, and confirms him as 
such, adoption takes the new creature as child, and con- 
firms him in that relation. 

Thirdly. This view is strengthened by the scriptural 
representations of the dual relations of the believer. 
He is at once a servant and a son. The apostles called 
themselves servants of God. So are all saints said to 
be. But it is denied by none that they are also declared 
to be sons of God. 

Fourthly. It has been said,! that this view would 
suppose a two-fold obedience of Christ — that of a ser- 
vant and that of a son — to ground justification on the 
one hand and adoption on the other. Well, Christ was 
both servant and son. His obedience was as well that of 
a son as that of a servant. In this respect, he supplied 
the defects of Adam’s obedience as servant and son, and 
makes us accepted and confirmed servants and sons of 
God. His obedience was complete, covering perfectly 
all our relations and duties. What a view does this 

give us of the consummate righteousness of Christ! 
“If it be still urged that a justified child must be, from 
the nature of the case, an adopted child, and that it is 
unwarrantable to separate the obedience into two kinds 
or aspects — that of a servant and that of a son; that 


*Candlish, Fatherhood of God. 
31 


482 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Christ was a servant as a son and precisely because he 
was a son, and so his filial, as the highest type of obe- 
dience, took up and absorbed into itself the obedience of 
a servant as the lower form; and that thus the one obe- 
dience of Christ grounded the justification and adoption 
of the believer as one and the same result — if this be 
still urged, let us see to what consequences we would 
irresistibly be led. 

It would follow, that the obedience of the believer 
could not be regarded as embracing two aspects — that 
of a servant and that of a son, but since he is a servant 
as he is a son and because he is a son, his filial obedience 
would absorb and annihilate that of a servant or subject. 
Then, further, since redemption restores us, at the least, — 
to the condition of Adam in innocence, it would follow 
that Adam would have obeyed as a servant precisely as 
he was ason; and we would reach a doctrine exactly the 
reverse of that maintained by Thornwell and Candlish 
— which was, that Adam obeyed only as a servant, and 
not at all asason. Now, although in this argument it 
is held that Adam was both a servant and a son, it has 
not gone the length of contending that he was a servant 
as a son and because he was a son. 

I am constrained to believe that while the two rela- 
tions co-existed in Christ, and co-exist in the believer, 
they are not identical. The one is not sunk in the other. 
The two sorts of obedience springing from them possess, 
in themselves considered, distinctive specific characteris- 
tics. They are, however, brought into the consistency 
of one generic obedience upon the one person who obeys. 
Somewhat like the two natures in Christ, the two rela- 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 483 


tions are brought into union with each other upon one 
and the same person, but are not interfused or blended so 
as to lose their peculiar properties. And as in the latter 
case the personal obedience was undivided, so in the 
former. 

I can see no reason, therefore, for receding from the 
position, that the obedience of Christ as the mediatorial 
servant of the Father, a subject under moral law, 
grounded the justification of his people as subjects of 
law, and that his obedience as a Son grounded their 
adoption as children in God’s house. The one entitles 
them to bow before God’s throne, the other to sit at God’s 
table. 

Yet I must admit that if it be held that the justifying 
act terminates on the elect sinner as a child, those who 
adopt that view would be warranted in doubting whether 
adoption, in its nature and office, could be considered as 
more than justification presupposing regeneration. If it 
could be shown that regeneration is limited to the pro- 
duction of sonship, I would have little motive for differ- 
ing from the eminent men whose views have been men- 
tioned. ; 

T cannot, however, help thinking that regeneration 
effects more than this — that it restores to the sinner 
the temper of obedience as a subject of law as well as 
the disposition of a child. And so thinking, I am 
obliged to attribute to justification and adoption specifi- 
eally different offices. They both confirm, but one con- 
firms the regenerate man as a subject of God’s rectoral 
government, the other confirms him as a member of 
God’s family. One may be an accepted and honored 


484 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 





subject of a king, but he is not therefore entitled to all. 
the privileges of his monarch’s household. 

The Westminster Shorter Catechism seems to sustain 
this view by its statement of the second element of 
justification — “accepteth us as righteous,” and by the 
affirmation that in consequence of adoption “we have a 
right to all the privileges of the sons of God.” If adop- 
tion were only the second element of justification, no 
articular definition of adoption would have been neces- 
sary. At least, it would only have been requisite to 
state, in separate form, that second element. But an 
articular definition of adoption is given, and its con- 
tents are not the same with those of the definition of the 
second constituent part of justification. So far as the 
Westminster Standards are concerned, the view here 
maintained is supported. Their statements have been 
expanded, and given a particular exposition which 
seems to be needed. Adoption accomplishes something 
distinctively different from that achieved by effectual 
calling and justification. The distribution of the West- 
minster divines, which makes it a separate article, is 
vindicated by distinctions which are grounded in reality. 

It might be contended in favor of the view that 
adoption is but a special aspect of either justification, or 
regeneration and justification combined, that the plan 
of salvation is treated in the Scriptures as distributed 
into the two great divisions of justification and saneti- 
fication. These two departments of it are symbolized by 
the blood and the water — justification by the blood, 
sanctification by the water. In this determination, a3 
regeneration is treated as a part of sanctification, so 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 485 


adoption may be as a part of justification, or of regenera- 
tion and justification taken together. To make adoption 
distinctive and codrdinate with the other doctrines is 
unnecessarily to multiply the heads of redemptive the- 
ology, to violate the simplicity of the above-mentioned 
distribution. To this it is replied: 

1. Although regeneration, as effecting a subjective 
change, is the initial act in sanctification, yet it is usual 
to distinguish between it as an act producing the new 
birth instantaneously and once for all, on the one hand, 
and sanctification as a continuous influence effecting and 
developing a state of holiness, on the other. There are 
adequate grounds for this distinction. So, although in 
one aspect of it adoption is closely allied to regeneration, 
and in another aspect to justification, still there are real 
differences between it and them, and it is proper to 
signalize these differences. 

2. The famous distribution mentioned into justifica- 
tion and sanctification appears to be grounded in the 
distinction between those elements of redemption which 
are objective or external and those which are subjective 
or internal — that is, those which done without us affect 
our legal relations and those which done within us affect 
our nature and character. 

This being so, we have regeneration and sanctification 
as one pair falling under the head of the subjective. 
They differ between themselves sufficiently to warrant 
their being separately treated, but they are reduced to 
unity by the fact of their subjectivity. They both come 
into the category of the water. In like manner justifica- 
tion and adoption are discriminated from each other on 


486 Discussions or THEoLocicaL Questions. 


the ground of difference in the relations they severally 
suppose, but they are brought into unity by the fact of 
their objectivity. They constitute another pair which 
may be contemplated together, inasmuch as they both 
as legal acts affect our relations and not directly our 
character. But as they accomplish that general result 
in modes specifically distinct from each other, they are 
with justice treated separately. Justification determines 
our relation as subjects and servants to God as ruler and 
judge; adoption our relation to God as father. It is 
our relations which are altered in each case, but the sort 
of relation in one is different from that in the other — a3 
the relation of servant and the relation of child. It is 
one thing to be approved by a governor, another to he 
loved by a father. 

A precise and comprehensive statement of the distri- 
bution alluded to would then be, (1) The blood, symbol- 
izing the change in our relations to God, including under 
it Justification and adoption; (2) the water, symbolizing 
the change in our nature and characters, including under 
it regeneration and sanctification. The following table 
exhibits the reduction: 


OBJEOTIVE. SUBJEOTIVE. 
oS ——— ee : 
Justification Adoption. Regeneration Sanctification. 


The nature and office of adoption having been an- 
alyzed, the following definition is proposed: 

Adoption is an act of God’s free grace, whereby, for 
the sake of Christ, he formally translates the regenerate 
from the family of Satan into his own, and legally 
confirms them in all the rights, immunities and privi- 
leges of his children. 





Tue Doctrine oF ADOPTION. 487 


II. The Grounds of Adoption. 


The grounds of adoption are: 

1. The eternal purpose of God the Father. He eter- 
nally predestinated the elect to be conformed to the 
image of his Son. Rom. viii. 29, “For whom he did 
foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to 
the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born 
among many brethren.” He eternally predestinated the 
elect to the adoption of children. (Eph. i. 5, “Having 
predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus 
Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his 
will.” 

2. Union with the Son of God, naturally, by virtue of 
his incarnation, and his consequent community of nature 
with the elect. Gal. iv. 4-7, “When the fulness of the 
time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, 
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And 
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore 
thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, thea 
an heir of God through Christ.” 

The second chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews was 
designed to show the necessity of the incarnation. It 
was necessary that the glorious Substitute should par- 
take of the nature of his people. He thus became their 
Brother, and they become his brethren. “Wherefore he 
is not ashamed to call them brethren.” But if his 
brethren, they are sons of his Father. “Forasmuch then 
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also 


488 Discussions or TuHEoLocicaL Questions. 





himself likewise took part of the same.” A common 
nature with the Son of God, as human, is therefore one 
of the grounds of adoption.! 

3. Union with the Son of God spiritually and vitally. 
This is accomplished, first, on God’s part, by regenera- 
tion, and, secondly, on man’s part, by faith. 

4. Union with the Son of God federally, as he is the — 
covenant-head and representative of the elect. This 
involves the imputation by God the Father of Christ’s 
vicarious righteousness to his people; and this again 
implies the imputation to them of his filial obedience, 
which is the special and immediate ground of their 
adoption, in contradistinction to the imputation of his 
obedience as subject, the special and immediate ground 
of their justification. Of course, his vicarious righteous- 
ness is one and undivided, embracing these two aspects 
of his obedience as a subject and as a son; just as his 
obedience to the precept of the law and to its penalty 
are but two aspects of one and the same righteousness. 

We are thus, if believers, first, made one with God’s 
Son by community of nature — we become his brethren 
and therefore sons of God with him. Secondly, we are 


* It is not intended to intimate that Christ was possessed of a 
two-fold sonship, as he was divine and as he was human. Upon 
this point I must concur with Dr. Candlish in opposition to Dr. 
Crawford. His sonship is eternally one. Had he become the Son 
of God as human, and thus, in addition to his divine sonship, 
assumed human sonship, the consequence would be involved that 
he became a human person, since sonship supposes personality. 
That doctrine the church has always rejected. The last attempt 
made to support it, by the school of “Adoptionists,” failed to 
receive the suffrages of the Roman Catholic Church, and has not 
been approved by the Protestant. 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 489 


partakers of his life, because partakers of his Spirit, 
and are as he in God the Father’s regard. Thirdly, we 
are possessed by imputation of his filial obedience, which 
performed the condition upon which we are indefectibly 
instated as sons in the fatherly favor of God. 


II. The Rights Involved in Adoption. 


The rights conferred by adoption may be divided into 
two classes, general and special. 

The general may be summed up in heirship. Paul 
says (Rom. viii. 17), “And if children, then heirs; heirs 
of God and joint-heirs with Christ.” We are heirs of 
God because we are children of God; and the mode in 
which the heirship exists is that of joint-heirship with 
Christ. We are thus led to the consideration of the 
following points: 

1. The nature of heirship in general. 

(1) It is a right to a patrimony derived from sonship. 
Its correlative idea is that of inheritance. 

(2) This sonship may be either, first, natural, by de- 
scent; or, secondly, constituted, by adoption. 

(3) The heirship which is derived from these sources 
may be, first, absolute, or, secondly, contingent. It is 
absolute, when it is limited by no conditions. The bare 
fact of sonship entitles to the possession of the inheri- 
tance. It is contingent, when the possession of the 
inheritance is conditioned upon the conduct of the heir 
apparent. The right, in this case, is originally inchoate. 
It is only complete upon the performance of the condi- 
tion. 





490 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


(4) This contingency is removable by the required 
obedience of the heir, which fulfils the condition. But 
it is conceivable that such an obedience, by covenant 
arrangement, may be vicariously rendered, and its merit 
transferred to another, and entitle him to the inheri- 
tance. This was the prospect before the children of 
Adam in innocence, and we shall see that the supposition 
is realized in regard to the heirship of God’s children in 
Christ Jesus. 

2. The acquisition of God’s inheritance by Christ for 
his people. 

(1) Notice the appointment by God the Father of his 
Son as the heir to the inheritance. There is a distinction 
between the essential rights of the Son of God as he is 
divine, and his rights as the mediator and federal head 
appointed by the Father, and acquiescing in that con- 
stitution. In the latter respect, the rights are stipulated 
by covenant arrangement in behalf of the seed of Christ, 
and suspended as to their fruition upon the perfect obe- 
dience of the federal head and representative. 

(2) Christ, as we have seen, was both a Son and a 
servant. 

(3) His actual possession of the inheritance having 
been conditioned upon his perfect obedience to the 
Father in the work of mediation, this condition was 
perfectly fulfilled by him, and he is, by the Father’s act, 
seized of the inheritance. The Father has formally put 
him in possession. 

(4) His obedience, according to the covenant, was 
vicarious, and is, by God the Father, imputed to those 
for whom it was rendered. The inheritance won was 


Tue Docrrine or ADOPTION. 491 


fully theirs, de jure, from the moment when Christ’s 
righteousness was finished and formally approved by the 
Father. It is partially theirs now, de facto, and will in 
that sense be completely theirs when their mortal pil- 
grimage is ended, and they enter into the rest of glory. 

(5) We may here note the distinction between the 
covenant under which Christ inherited, and the adminis- 
tration of it by him in the form of a testament, under 
which we actually and consciously inherit. 

3. The mode in which we are made heirs, and actually 
enter upon the possession of the inheritance. 

_ Let us observe its several steps. 

(1) The preparatory steps are our regeneration and 
justification. The way is thus cleared. 

(2) The presentation of us by Christ to the Father, 
and his claim that we be adopted by him, constituted 
heirs with his Son, and invested with a formally con- 
firmed right in him to the inheritance. 

(3) The adopting act of the Father. What was con- 
ditional in Christ’s case is unconditional in that of his 
people. His perfect obedience as a Son is by the Father 
transferred to their account. This is declared by the 
Father in the court of heaven, and he authoritatively 
adopts them as his sons. They as adopted children, be- 
eause brethren of Christ, inherit in him. The inheri- 
tance is theirs because Christ acquired it for them, and 
the Father fulfils his eternal promise to bestow it upon 
Christ and upon them in him, as the reward of his con- 
summated obedience. The title to the inheritance is 
indefeasible. That title is theirs. 

4. What the inheritance is. 





492 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Briefly, it is all that can be conceived or believed as 
embraced in the paternal favor and love of God: 

(1) Here, in this world of temptation and conflict, 
vicissitude and trial; here, amidst the perils of life, and 
in the awful crisis of death. 

(2) Hereafter, at the resurrection of the dead, at the 
bar of final judgment, in the world of heavenly bliss, 
and through the ages of eternity. In a word, it is the 
riches of grace and the riches of glory. 

Home! All that is wrapped up in that sweet, trans- 
cendent word, heightened, sanctified, glorified, and pro- 
jected everlastingly; our Father’s house, because Jesus’ 
Father’s house, with all it includes, of fellowship with 
God the Trinity, with holy angels, with glorified saints, 
with elect relatives, brethren and friends. Ineffable 
communion! And to this will be added, if to it aught — 
can be added, all outward circumstances of glory which — 
can be collected by an Almighty Father around the 
brethren of his Son. 

We come now to state concisely the special rights 
pertaining to adoption. They may be contemplated as 
rights to immunities and privileges. 

1. Immunities: 

(1) From an abject, slavish temper of obedience. 

(2) From bondage to human authority, in religious 
matters, when exercised contrary to, or apart from, the 
Word of God. 

(3) From bondage to the ceremonial law. 

(4) From bondage to the moral law as a standard of 
justification, broken and condemning; and consequently 
from the fear of condemnation and the fear of death. 





Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 493 


It is true that these immunities are not altogether 
peculiar to adoption. They are also conferred by justifi- 
cation. But it must be confessed that they are mightily 
enhanced by adoption into the family of God. The 
justified subject of law must feel that they are wonder- 
fully strengthened, if he is also conscious that he is an 
adopted child, and that the Holy Spirit bears witness to 
his sonship. 

2. Privileges: 

(1) The free spirit of filial obedience, leading to bold- 
ness of access to God, and liberty of communion with 
him as children. This constitutes one of the most 
marked differences between the saints of the New Testa- 
ment and those of the Old. Radically, as redeemed, 
there is no difference between them. Both must be 
viewed as regenerated, justified and adopted. But the 
_ Old Testament saints, according to Paul’s description 
in the fourth chapter of Galatians, were minor children, 
under bondage to tutors and governors. They were as 
if servants. They were more characterized by the tem- 
per of servants than by that of sons. The New Testa- 
ment saints possess in greater fulness the rich grace of 
adoption. The servant, with hat in hand, stands at a 
respectful distance awaiting the orders of his master; 
the child of God, as Luther has graphically suggested, 
rushes into the presence of his Father, leaps into his 
lap, and nestles in his bosom. 

(2) Liberty to offer imperfect, though sincere, obedi- 
ence, and to hope for its acceptance. 

(3) The wholesome, loving, saving discipline of chil- 
dren in God’s family: 


494 Discussions or THEoLocioaL QuzsTions. 


First, perfective discipline. 

Secondly, corrective and reformatory discipline. 

(4) The enjoyment of all conceivable good in God 
as the portion of the soul. 


IV. The Duties Springing from Adoption. 


1. To render to God the honor which is due to him 
as our Father. 

2. To exercise towards him all those affections and 
feelings which are due from children to a father: 

(1) Filial love. 

(2) Filial trust. 

(3) Submission to, and acquiescence in, his parental 
will and government. 

(4) Filial hope. 

3. To obey him as a Father. 


4. To imitate him as a Father; to strive to be like 


him; to be “imitators of God as dear children”; to 
endeavor to be “perfect even as our Father in heaven is 
perfect.” 

5. To render to the Lord Jesus the utmost honor, love, 
gratitude and obedience, as our Brother through whom 
alone we are related to God as a Father. 

6. To pray for, receive and honor the Holy Spirit as 
the Spirit of adoption, crying in us Abba, Father, and 
bearing witness with our spirits that we are children of 
God. 

7. To love all God’s people, and treat them as our 
dear brethren — our Father’s children in Christ Jesus 
our Lord. There is a peculiar sympathy and confidence 
which is unavoidable and proper in relation to those 
who are of the same denominational fold with us; but 





Tue Doctrine oF ADOPTION. 495 


this, if we are possessed of the Spirit of adoption, will 
and must consist with affection for all, of every name 
and connection, who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
cerity, both theirs and ours, and will ever preserve us 
from that bigotry which would exclude from our love 
and communion any of the true people of God. It 
should be a maxim with us, that whenever we perceive 
in others the lineaments, however faint and disfigured 
with error or weakness, of our Father’s children, they 
shall surely experience the embrace of a brother’s arms. 

8. To separate ourselves from the world, so far as it 
is out of sympathy with God as our Father. “Wherefore 
come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith 
the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will 
receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall 
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 

9. Ever to aspire with longing towards heaven — our 
Father’s house, the family gathering place, our glorious 
and everlasting home. 


V. The Evidences of Adoption. 


We come, finally'to consider the evidences of adoption. 
These are, in the Scriptures, distributed into two kinds, 
the witness of our own spirit, and the witness of the 
Holy Spirit. Paul, in the eighth chapter of Romans, 
says, “The Spirit itself beareth witness (ovppaptupet) 
with our spirit that we are the children of God.” The 
Spirit here cannot mean the subjective temper of son- 
ship. For, in the first place, no argument can be derived 
from the fact that the neuter gender is employed — the 





496 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Spirit itself, adro rd Ivedya. The noun spirit in the 
Greek is neuter, and hence the necessity of its relatives 
being used in that gender. When the Lord Jesus 
promised to send the Holy Spirit to his disciples, he 
employed the personal pronoun he. In the second place, 
Paul, in the immediate context, speaking of the Spirit 
of adoption says, év gf xpafopev' ABBadxatye. Without 
stopping to inquire whether “by whom we cry” is not a 
preferable translation to “whereby we ery,” let us com- 
pare the declaration with the parallel one in the fourth 
chapter of Galatians, “And because ye are sons, God 
hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, 
crying Abba, Father.” It is not our hearts which are 
here said to ery, but the Spirit, 7d Mvevpa—xpafov. 

Further, if the Spirit of adoption that is said to bear 
witness with our spirit be the temper of sons, we would 
have the extraordinary affirmation that our spirit bears 
witness with our own spirit that we are the children of 
God! But, enough as to this matter. In company with 
the great majority of evangelical expositors, I under- 
stand Paul to say that the Holy Spirit bears witness 
with our spirit that we are God’s children. 

We have, then, two distinct, but concurrent, witnesses 
to the fact of our adoption — that of the Holy Spirit, 
and that of our own spirit. 


1. The Witness of Our Own Spirit. 


The witness of our own spirit is a judgment of our 
understanding, based on the testimony of God’s Word 
as to the marks — indicia — which distinguish his chil- 


Tue Doctriye or Apoprion. 497 


dren, and on our consciousness of possessing those marks. 
From these premises we conclude that we are children of 
God. The Scriptures furnish the major premise, our 
consciousness the minor, and our understanding the 
judgment derived from the premises. Let this be illus- 
trated by examples: 

Every one that is born of God believes on the Lord 
Jesus Christ; I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; there- 
fore, I am born of God. 

Every one that is born of God loves the brethren; 
I love the brethren; therefore, I am born of God. 

_ Every one that is born of God forgives his enemies; 
I forgive my enemies; therefore, I am born of God. 

Other examples of the same kind may be furnished. 
But these are sufficient for the purpose in view. It may 
be said that these arguments avail only to prove regene- 
ration. The answer is easy. All who are regenerated 
are also adopted. The proof needs. only an obvious 
expansion — thus: Every one that is regenerated is 
adopted; I am regenerated; therefore, I am adopted. 
The proof of regeneration having been given, that of 
adoption is inevitable. 

It will be observed that this is very different from 
Thomas Watson’s statement of the grounds of assurance. 
“Assurance,” says he, “consists of a practical syllogism, 
where the Word of God makes the major, conscience the 
minor, the Spirit of God the conclusion. The Word 
saith, he that fears and loves God is loved of God; there 
is the major proposition. Then conscience makes the 
minor: But I fear and love God. Then the Spirit 


makes the conclusion: Therefore thou art loved of God. 
32 


> & 


498 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


And this is that which the apostle calls, The witnessing 
of the Spirit with our spirit (Rom. viii. 16).” 

I do not pause to find fault with Watson’s source of 
the minor, which he makes conscience. Possibly he may 
have meant consciousness, or have intended to include it. 
The great difficulty in his statement of the case is that he 
so mixes the witness of our own spirit and the witness 
of the Holy Spirit in his “practical syllogism” as to 
leave but one witness. The only way in which one can ~ 
understand him is by supposing that he regarded the 
witness of our own spirit as inchoate and incomplete 
until consummated by the witness of the Holy Spirit. ” 
But, if it be conceded that our own spirit is competent 
to perceive the testimony of the Word as the major, and 
to supply the minor, what hinders it from drawing the 
conclusion? Here Watson appears to deny the distinet- 
ness and immediacy of the Spirit’s witness, but in other 
places he seems to acknowledge them. 

It is true that the Spirit assists us in interpreting the 
facts of Scripture and of our own consciousness, but he 
also assists us in coming to the conclusion derived from 
their comparison. Nothing, however, yet comes to the 
view but the witness of our own spirit, aided by the 
influence of the Holy Spirit. The concurrent witness 
of the Holy Spirit is another thing. 

In all the examples which have been here afforded of 
the mode in which the witness of our own spirit is borne, 
it will be noticed that the process is mediate and inferen- 
tial. The Word of God supplies the marks of sonship; 
our own spirit through consciousness testifies that we 
possess those marks; and then our own spirit, through 


ae? 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 499 


the intellect, furnishes the judgment that we are the 
adopted children of God. Of course, the testimony thus 
borne is of our own spirit to itself; but the testimony is 
mediate. It is never immediate — as though our spirit 
should directly say to us, You are children of God. We 
shall see that such a direct and immediate testimony is 
borne to us by the Spirit of God. 

The witness of our own spirit is mediate and inferen- 
tial. It is borne through the testimony of the Scriptures, 
through the conscious possession of the graces of the 
‘Spirit, and through the conclusion of our logical under- 
“standing. 


2. The Witness of the Holy Spirit. 


The witness of the Holy Spirit is, negatively, not 
mediate and inferential, like the witness of our own 
spirit, but, positively, is an immediate certification made 
to believers of the fact of their adoption. By immediate 
is not meant instantaneous in time, but not mediate, not 
rendered through or by means of anything else. It may 
be well to say that the term witness is used as synony- 
mous with testimony. The Spirit of God and our own 
spirit are alike witness-bearers, but in the discussion it 
is the testimony respectively borne which is that upon 
which attention centres. The issue, clearly,.is between 
the mediate testimony and the immediate testimony of 
the Holy Spirit, to the fact of the believer’s adoption. 

The reformers, Continental and British, maintained 
the doctrine of the immediate witness of the Holy Spirit. 
Afterwards a school of theologians arose, containing in it 


500 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


many Calvinists, which contended for the mediate wit- 
ness. é 

It is somewhat difficult to harmonize with each other 
the advocates of the mediate witness, and consequently 
difficult to get a clear conception of their theory. Some 
put the case in this way: Our own spirit, through con- 
sciousness, perceives in us the marks of sanctification 
indicated in the Word, and the Holy Spirit “makes the 
conclusion,” draws the inference that we are adopted. 
Others say, that the Spirit of God “enables” us to draw 
this inference. Others maintain that the Holy Spirit 
intensifies and clarifies the witness of our spirit; the 
latter is apt to be obscure, the Spirit makes it clear; it 
is weak, the Spirit makes it strong. Others still repre- 
sent the Spirit as “shining” upon his own graces in the 
soul, and thus rendering them more distinctly appre- 
hensible by our consciousness. 

What seems to be common to those differing modes of 
representing the case is, that the witness of the Holy 
Spirit is mediated through our graces and our conscious- 
ness of possessing them. It is denied to be direct or 
immediate; it is not a separate (though concurrent) 
testimony to the fact of our adoption, but is blended 
with the testimony of our own spirit. The Spirit assists 
and strengthens the testimony of our spirit; it has no 
distinct individuality of its own. This applies even to 
the view which holds that we perceive the marks of 
sonship in the Word, are conscious that they belong to 
us, and the Spirit of God “makes the conclusion” that 
we are sons of God. For, if we have been competent to 
frame the major and the minor premises in this syllo- 





Tuer DoctrInE oF ADOPTION. 501 


gism, we must adopt the conclusion, unless our logical 
faculty is held in abeyance when we attempt to infer or 
conclude anything in religicus matters. It comes to this, 
that the Holy Spirit assists and strengthens us in “mak- 
ing the conclusion” for ourselves. 

Tn order to clearness, it is needful to bear in mind 
what it is precisely to which the testimony is borne. 
Strictly speaking, our own spirit, through consciousness, 
bears witness to our possession of the marks of sonship ; 
that we are adopted is an inference. The Holy Spirit, 
on the other hand, directly testifies to the fact of our 
adoption. He does not infer that fact; he does not, as 
one has said, proceed “by argumentation.” 

The contention, in these remarks, is in favor of the 
doctrine held by the reformers, namely, that of the 
immediate or direct witness of the Spirit. 

(1) It is possible. This could be denied only by those 
who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost. Admit 
that he is a person, and it is evident that he performs 
personal acts. He who said, “Separate me Saul and 
Barnabas,” was not only proved by that fact to be a per- 
son, but also to have known Paul and Barnabas as his 
own inspired messengers. It must also be confessed that 
he could have assured them of their divine call and 
commission. But if he could have certified to them their 
inspiration, why not their adoption? Can an earthly 
father testify to his child that he had confirmed him in 
his inheritance, and is the same power denied to our 
heavenly Father? Can he not hold direct intercourse 
with us by his Spirit? Is not this implied in the doc- 
trine of “the communion of the Holy Ghost,” which the 


502 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Scriptures expressly teach, and the whole church univer- 
sal has steadily maintained? To say that the Holy 
Spirit cannot immediately witness to our adoption, is 
to symbolize with the pantheist; to say that the doctrine 
breeds fanaticism is to make common cause with the 
formalist and the adherent of Trent. 

(2) It is a concurrent testimony. Paul, in the classi- 
cal passage in Romans, does not say that the Spirit 
bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children. 
If he had said so, he would have affirmed only one wit- 
ness, and that the witness of the Holy Spirit; and then 
the doctrine that our spirit is the witness to our adoption, 
and that its testimony is only strengthened, illuminated 
and confirmed by the Holy Spirit — the doctrine here 
contended against — would be without scriptural foun- 
dation. 

But Paul says that the Spirit bears witness with our 
spirit that we are the children of God. That does teach 
that our spirit bears testimony, but it also as distinctly 
teaches that the Holy Spirit bears his testimony, and 
bears it jointly with the testimony of our spirit. We 
are unequivocally taught the concurrence of the two 
testimonies to the believer’s adoption. It would be 
superfluous to remark that two separate witnesses can 
bear testimony to the same fact. In this case, the faet 
testified to is the believer’s adoption. The two separate 
witnesses to the fact are the Holy Spirit and our own 
spirit. Who would deny that they are distinct from 
each other ?— that they are not identically one and the 
same witness-bearer? It is true that Paul speaks of a 
mysterious identification of God’s Spirit with our 





Tur Doctrine oF ADOPTION. 503 


spirits, when at one time he speaks of our crying, Abba, 
Father, and at another declares that the Spirit cries, 
Abba, Father. But this is a moral and not a substantive 
identity. He is not we, and we are not he. Both con- 
currently ery, Abba, Father. So with the testimony to 
our adoption. The Spirit testifies, and our own spirit 
testifies, to the fact. The witness-bearers are distinct, 
but they bear concurrent testimony. 

If, then, one is not conscious of possessing the true 
marks of God’s children, his own spirit could bear no 
valid testimony to his adoption; and it would, of course, 
follow that the Holy Spirit would not testify to his 
adoption. The absence of the true witness of our own 
spirit would involve the absence of the Spirit’s witness. 
I am not prepared to assert that the two testimonies are 
always associated in time. That is a profoundly difficult 
point, and dogmatism about it would perhaps be rash 
and ill-advised. But it is clear that if one never has had 
any consciousness of possessing the marks of sanctifica- 
tion, he cannot enjoy the Spirit’s testimony to his adop- 
tion. Should such a one claim to have the witness of 
the Spirit, his claim would be false. That claim can 
alone be true, where there is, or has been, some con- 
sciousness of the work of sanctification in the heart. 
The two testimonies God has joined together. They 
cannot be put asunder. 

(3) As to its nature, it is a special illumination by 
the Holy Spirit of the believer’s soul in regard to the 
question of his adoption. This illumination is imme- 
diately imparted by the Spirit, and, to the extent to 
which it is furnished, assures the believer of his adop- 





504 Discussions or THEoLogicaL Questions. 


tion. It has been, by its advocates, variously designated 
as a suggestion, an impression, and even as an inspira- 
tion or a revelation. None of these terms are objection- 
able, provided they are employed with proper limita- 
tions, and the doctrine itself is guarded from abuse. 
They have all be charged with leading to mysticism and 
fanaticism. Even the Calvinistic opponents of the direct 
_witness of the Spirit have declared that it opens the 
flood-gates of religious enthusiasm. Strange, that the 
reformers did not see this danger as clearly as their 
modern followers! 

The whole question hinges upon the alleged fact of 
the direct or immediate testimony of the Holy Spirit 
to the believer’s adoption. If that fact be denied, it is 
its maintenance which is stigmatized as conducing to 
fanaticism. If it be admitted, then, no terms by which 
it is justly represented, are liable to any more criticism 
than the fact itself. Concede the reality of the imme- 
diate witness, and what fair objection can be urged 
against its being characterized as a special illumination, 
a suggestion, an impression, or, if you please, an inspira- 
tion or a revelation? It is the thing itself, not its names, 
which is the target against which the shafts are shot. 
If the Spirit directly testifies to the believer that he is 
adopted, does not the Spirit inform him that he is 
adopted? And as no one contends that the information 
is imparted in writing or in spoken and audible words, 
why not say that it is a suggestion to, or an impression 
upon, the believer’s mind? Why not, if the assurance. 
of adoption is directly imparted to his mind? Grant 
that, and you admit not only a suggestion, an im- 


Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 505 


“pression, but a powerful suggestion, a powerful im- . 
pression. 

The main force of the objection, however, is directed 
against the words inspiration and revelation. It is said 
that they imply the mystic’s doctrine of an inner light, 
that they lift the recipient of the immediate witness to 
the level of prophets and apostles. But if it be a fact 
that the Holy Spirit bears direct testimony to the be- 
liever that he is adopted, if he thus specially illuminates 
him so that he clearly apprehends his adoption, where is 
the harm in saying that the Spirit inspires him to know 
the fact? And if the Spirit informs, assures, the be- 
liever of his adoption, one craves to see the impropriety 
of saying that he reveals to the believer the fact of his 
adoption. The whole difficulty arises from the employ- 
ment, in a certain relation, of these words in a very 
peculiar sense. The terms inspiration and revelation, 
when used in relation to prophets and apostles, have a 
very peculiar and extraordinary signification. Granted. 
But does it follow that they are never employed in a 
different sense? or, that they are improperly employed 
in another and a more common sense? 

If I say that one is inspired with noble and lofty con- 
ceptions of a subject, do I mean to say that he is a 
prophet or an apostle? Or, if I say that one received a 
revelation of a secret of which he had been ignorant, do 
I intend to assign him to the same special and extra- 
ordinary class? When, in the Episcopal liturgy, the 
prayer is offered up that God would cleanse the hearts 
of the worshippers “by the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost,” is it a supplication that they all may be made 


ty - * Ge? 
Bat, Fall 
- A'S 


506 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. : 
prophets and apostles? When Paul prayed that God 
might give unto the Ephesian believers the spirit of 
wisdom and revelation, did he design to ask that they 
might become inspired prophets or apostles? 


The Synod of Dort acknowledged as an element of — 


the believer’s assurance “the testimony of the Holy 
Ghost,” and says that this certain assurance “does not 
accrue to them from a particular revelation.” The 
Westminster Assembly of Divines confessed the con- 
current witness of the Holy Spirit with that of our own 
spirit, and says that infallible assurance may be at- 
tained “without extraordinary revelation.” The “extra- 
ordinary revelation” of Westminster interprets the “par- 
ticular revelation” of Dort. It is evident that both 
bodies meant to exclude revelation in its technical sense, 
as involving the idea of persons inspired —as were 
prophets and apostles. And in that sense, revelation is 
universally denied by the evangelical abettors of the 
immediate witness of the Spirit to be involved in that 
testimony. Should one be agitating the question 
whether he be a child of God, and the Holy Spirit should 
bear witness with his spirit that he is a child of God, 
that would be a revelation to him of -the fact of his 
adoption, or it would be no witness at all. 

The distinction between the two cases is too plain to 
detain the discussion long. In the one, revelation is 
made only to certain, select persons; in the other, it is 
possible to all believers. In the one, it is the very matter 
of Scripture; in the other, it is the assurance that one 
is a child of God. In the one, it is communicated to 
inspired organs of God to be by them, as infallible 






Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. “307 | 


teachers, communicated to others; in the other, it is a 
communication which terminates on those to whom it is 
made, and is not intended to be by them communicated 
to others. In the one, it is sustained by miraculous 
attestation; in the other, not. It looks, therefore, very 
much like trifling to charge the advocates of this doctrine 
with claiming for those who enjoy the direct witness of 
the Spirit to their adoption the extraordinary gifts of 
inspired prophets and apostles. 

Equally incorrect is it to impute fanaticism to the 
doctrine, on the ground that it countenances a peculiar 
tenet of mysticism. It is a distinctive contention of the 
mystic that the Spirit immediately reveals to individuals 
new, original truth, not contained in the Scriptures. In 
this case, on the contrary, the Spirit applies to ind?- 
vidual believers the truths embraced in the Bible. 
There is no pretension that the Spirit, in his immediate 
witness, departs in the slightest degree from his own 
inspired Word. His direct witness cannot be con- 
founded with the inner light of the mystic. 

Furthermore, what has already been said in regard 
to the concurrence of the Spirit’s witness with that of 
our own spirit is, in itself, sufficient to guard the doc- 
trine from this misapprehension and consequent mis- 
construction. The very gist of the witness of our own 
spirit is that a comparison is instituted between our 
conscious experience and the marks of grace laid down 
in the Scriptures. Now with a witness thus grounded in 
Scripture the witness of God’s Spirit concurs. The two 
witnesses are joint. The Scriptures are conformed to 


in both. 


508 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


The doctrine of the immediate witness of the Spirit 
is not liable to the criticisms passed upon it. It could 
not be, if, as has been attempted to prove, it is affirmed 
in God’s Word. 

(4) It is often suddenly and unexpectedly imparted. 
This fact, in addition to what has already been urged, 
discriminates the immediate witness of the Holy Spirit 
from the mediate witness of our own spirit. The latter, 
from the nature of the case, is the result of reflection. 
It is a conclusion from premises which have been pon- 
dered; and while it may rejoice, cannot surprise, us. 
The former, on the other hand, is not founded upon 
reasoning, nor attained by reflection. One may receive 
the heavenly boon when dejected by doubt and distressed 
by fear. It may flash into his clouded soul like a beam 
of heavenly glory. With this no gleam of assurance, 
glimmering from some evanescent consciousness of grace, — : 
can be put in comparison. As well compare the phos- 
phorescent glitter of a wave with the full blaze of a 
light-house. 

(5) The tests of its genuineness are its concurrence 
with the sincere desires of the recipient for holiness, and 
its own inherent tendency to produce holy results. It — 
has before been shown that where there is no conscious- 
ness of grace in the soul, there can be no direct witness 
of the Spirit to the fact of adoption. It is, moreover, 
true that when possessed its inevitable effect is the 
increase of holiness in the heart. Nothing more effec- ’ 
tually tends to engender profound humility, a deep sens? 
of dependence on the Holy Spirit, and the assiduous 
employment of the means of grace. For, as it is a free 






Tue Doctrine or ApDoprrion. 509 


gift, bestowed in sovereignty in answer to fervent 
prayer, and not elaborated from the inferential processes 
of the believer’s mind, the recipient of the heavenly boon 
cannot but be humbly grateful to God for its bestowal, 
and anxious to retain it by walking in the paths of holy 
obedience. The joy accompanying it is too precious to 
be imperilled by a careless indulgence in the sins either 
of omission or of commission. Like one upon whom a 
check for a fortune has been conferred, the recipient of 
the witness of the Spirit — his conscious title to heaven 
— ought, at least, to guard it with scrupulous and un- 
remitting fidelity. That this blessed witness should 
tend to produce the delusion of the fanatic, the spiritual 
pride of the formalist, or the licentious carelessness of 
the antinomian, is simply impossible. It were blas- 
phemy to say that it is a premium for sin. None of 
God’s people can so misrepresent it without first mis- 
conceiving it; and none of the pretenders to this high 
and glorious distinction utter the truth, who live in the 
allowed indulgence of sin, or do not “endeavor after new 
obedience.” 

But he who, in doubt as to his spiritual condition, 
sincerely struggles against sin and earnestly prays to be 
delivered from its power as well as its guilt, feels a sud- 
den accession to his soul of joy-imparting assurance, 
impelling him in the way of holiness, is entitled to con- 
clude that the Spirit bears immediate witness to the fact 
of his adoption. 

(6) It is perfectly assuring. The witness of our own 
spirit is more or less assuring; it admits of degrees of 
strength and clearness. The direct witness of the Holy 


510 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


Spirit is, from the nature of the case, infallible. If the 
God of truth assure one of his adoption into the divine 
family, no doubt can attach to the testimony. God 
cannot lie; and the Spirit is God. 

(7) It is liable to be silenced by sin. The cessation of — | 
effort against sin, the tolerance of temptation to sin, the 
conscious, allowed indulgence in any known sin, alienate 
from the soul this inestimable evidence of God’s favor, 
pull from the finger the ring which pledges his fatherly 
love, and extinguish the light in which we “read our 
title clear to mansions in the skies.” 

(8) Its absence is a great deprivation. Its loss is to 
the believer’s soul what the extinction of sight and the 
absence of sunlight would be to the body. The body 
might, in the case supposed, continue to discharge some 
of its functions, but nothing could compensate for the 
loss of vision. So, the soul which has been deprived of 
the witness of the Spirit may perform, in some measure, 
the functions of spiritual life, but must go mourning 
after its lost treasure, and crying with the penitent 
Psalmist of Israel, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.” 

(9) When lost, it may be recovered. God who in 
sovereignty at first bestowed it, and then withdrew it, 
may again impart it. David, when sunk in the depths 
of grief for his great sin, confessed that he had lost it, 
but pleaded with God for its restoration to his soul, in 
the affecting prayer, “Restore unto me the joy of thy 
salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit.” 

(10) It assures the believer of his final salvation. 
Here the Wesleyan Arminian advocates of the imme- 
diate witness of the Spirit break with its Calvinistic 





Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 511 


asserters. This they must do, or break with their theo- 
logical system. And break with their system they ought 
to, if their doctrine of the Spirit’s direct testimony is 
true. The two are inconsistent with each other. They 
are happily inconsistent in maintaining the doctrine. 
It has been characterized by an able writer as the green 
spot in the desert of Wesleyan Methodism. So long as 
it is adhered to, it will serve to check the otherwise 
inevitable tendency of that theology to develop into semi- 
Pelagianism. 

In the January and April numbers of the Quarterly 
Review of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for 
1849, Dr. Thomas O. Summers, the late distinguished 
professor of Systematic Theology in Vanderbilt Uni- 
versity, has two articles, reviewing Walton’s treatise 
on the Evidence of the Believer’s Adoption, in which, 
after a defence of the doctrine of the Spirit’s direct 
witness, he is at pains to show that it does not involve 
the assurance of final salvation. That, he contends, is a 
Calvinistic addendum to the doctrine, and he pronounces 
it both “unscriptural and dangerous.” The question of 
the dangerousness of the Calvinistic view depends alto- 
gether upon the question of its scripturalness. If it be 
unscriptural it is certainly dangerous; if scriptural, it 
is certain that there is no danger in it. The main issue, 
then, must be in regard to the scripturalness or unscrip- 
turalness of these antagonistic positions. The question 
of the final perseverance of the saints, which lies at the 
bottom of this special inquiry, will not be discussed at 
length, but so far as it is necessarily implicated in the 
matter before us. 


512 Drisovusstons or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


First. Is the Calvinistic position liable to the charge 
of being unscriptural ? 

“While the Bible,” remarks the reviewer, “abounds 
with passages which inculcate the doctrine of assurance, 
so far as it relates to the believer’s present acceptance 
with God and his eternal salvation, on condition of his 
enduring to the end, there is not a text which intimates 
that this assurance is extended to the believer’s perse- 
verance and consequent salvation. And no wonder, for 
such an assurance would be false in many cases, and 
dangerous in all.” Without pausing, at this point, to 
dwell upon the characteristically Arminian assertion 
that because, in the reviewer’s opinion, the disputed 
feature of the Spirit’s witness would be false and dan- 
gerous, it cannot be scriptural, let us inquire whether 
the confident affirmation, that there is not a text which 
intimates the Calvinistic view, can be sustained. 

The first appeal is taken to 2 Cor. v. 1-9. Paul says, 
“We know,” words which will be admitted to be equive- 
lent to we are assured. We know, we are assured of, 
what? That, if we endure to the end, we shall get to 
heaven? No. “We know” — we are assured — “that 
if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 
we have a building of God, an house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens.” We are assured that 
when we die our disembodied spirits will go to heaven, 
and be there eternally. It is noteworthy that, in speak- 
ing of the home in heaven, Paul says “we have” it 
— (Zxopsv) — we now have that home. We are indubi- 
tably assured that it is ours. 

Will it be answered that Paul speaks of himself? He 





Tue Doctrine or ADOPTION. 513 


uses the plural— we know. He includes others with 
himself. 

Will it be said that he speaks only of himself and his 
fellow-apostles? Was assurance of heaven peculiar to 
the official servants of our Lord? Was “the earnest of 
the Spirit” a gift limited to them? Was it true only 
of them that whilst they were at home in the body they 
were absent from the Lord? If assurance of heaven is 
unscriptural and dangerous, why was it conferred upon 
apostles? But if upon them, why is it unscriptural and 
dangerous when bestowed upon other believers ? 

Will the ground be taken that the apostle inserts the 
condition claimed by Arminians, when he says, “If so be 
that being clothed (or, as some render the word, un- 
clothed) we shall not be found naked”? Even the An- 
thorized Version does not necessarily express a doubt. 
Nothing is more common in English than to state an 
assumption, an admitted point, in the words, if it be so. 
But learned scholars contend that the Greek words are 
susceptible of the rendering, seeing it is so, or a like one. 
The case is settled by the consideration that after th 
apostle had used these words he says, “Therefore we are 
always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home 
in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” The plain 
meaning is, we are assured that when we die we shall 
be present with the Lord. Is not this the assurance of 
final salvation ? 

Having seen the bearing of this great passage upon 
the alleged unscripturalness of the doctrine that we may 
be assured of ultimate salvation, let us notice, before we 


dismiss it, its utterance as to the alleged dangerousness 
33 


514 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


of that doctrine, as leading to carelessness of walk. 
After stating the believer’s assurance of “perseverance 
and consequent salvation,” the apostle thus concludes, 
“Wherefore we labor, that whether present or absent, 
we may be accepted of him.” Because we are sure of 
heaven, we labor to be meet for it; because we are sure 
of being present with the Lord, we labor to be accepted 
of him. } 

An appeal may also be taken to Phil. i. 6, “Being 
confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a 
good work in you, will perform it [or, will finish it} 
until the day of Jesus Christ.” Either this refers to the 
apostle’s assurance or that of the believers whom he 
addressed. If the former, the question is unavoidable, 
Why, if Paul was assured of the Philippian believers’ 
“perseverance and consequent salvation,” might they not 
have been assured of the same? If the latter, the de- 
claration is express, that believers may be assured of 
their perseverance,” or rather of their divine preserva- 
tion, and “consequent salvation.” On either supposi- 
tion, the assurance of final salvation is certainly not 
“nnscriptural.” 

Let us invoke also Psa. xxxviii. 7, 8, “Though I walk 
in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt 
stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine ene- ~ 
mies, and thy right hand shall save me. The Lord will 
perfect that which concerneth me,” ete. The Psalmist 
in these words professes his personal experience. The 
assurance of final salvation is so definitely expressed 
that argument would be idle. 

Were a reference to be made to 2 Tim. i. 12, “For I 





Tur Doctrine or Abortion. 515 


know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that 
he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him 
against that day,” the Arminian would at once except 
against its relevancy to the present question, since he 
does not deny the ability of Christ finally to save, or the 
believer’s assurance of that ability; the only question 
being whether the believer may be assured that Christ 
will, in fact, ultimately save him. Nevertheless, the pas- 
sage does teach that fact by necessary implication. For, 
if the apostle had deposited in his Saviour’s hands the 
interests of his soul, and was assured of Christ’s accept- 
ance of the deposit, he must have been also assured of 
Christ’s faithfulness to the sacred trust, or have dis- 
eredited his truth and fidelity to his promises. The 
deposit of himself in Jesus’ hands was consciously made. 
The Greek proves that. Was he not, then, assured that 
Jesus would keep him to everlasting life ? 

One would be disposed to cite Job xix. 25-27, and to 
~ insist on that glorious testimony of the venerable patri- 
arch, were it not that the attempt has been made for 
centuries, and is making now, to eviscerate it of its 
reference to the Messiah and the final resurrection of the 
dead; and that, in this discussion, shelter might be 
taken under these unsettling constructions. Even the 
Jewish rabbirs, however, as John Howe testifies, gave 
it that reference; and to those who maintain the ortho- 
dox genius of the passage it affords an illustrious provf 
that the saints of God in the dim ages of the past may 
have been assured, by the witness of the Holy Ghost, of 
their “perseverance and consequent salvation.” 

A sufficient number of testimonies have been adduced 


516 Duscussrons oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


from Scripture to evince the rashness of the assertion 
that “there is not a text which intimates” that the be 
liever may be assured of his final salvation. 

But this is not all. The Holy Spirit, in his inspired 
Word, frequently declares that believers will be finally 
saved. It would be easy to allege the proofs. Now, the 
point is made, that if the Spirit bears testimony to the 
fact of the believer’s final salvation in the external 
Word, he may bear testimony to the same fact in the 
believer’s internal consciousness. If the one is serip- 
tural, the other cannot be unscriptural ; and if the reve- 
lation of the doctrine is not dangerous, no more so can 
be the delivery of the witness. 

Secondly. An argument, addressed to the reviewer's 
concessions, will be employed. 

He admits that the Spirit bears witness to the be 
liever’s present salvation. This is the language of his 
school. What is this present salvation? It is conceiv- 
able that one might be temporarily delivered from the 
sense of guilt, from the apprehension of judgment, and 
from the fear of hell. But if these awful emotions may 
return upon him, it is obvious that he is not saved from 
them. Further, of what avail would be salvation for a 
time from the sense of guilt, the apprehension of judg- 
ment, and the fear of hell, if he is not finally saved from 
guilt, judgment, and hell as actually experienced reali- 
ties? A present salvation, in this view, would not be a 
real salvation, and the witness of the Spirit to the be 
liever’s salvation would be reduced to zero. 

But it may be replied that the foregoing statement 
of the case is erroneous and misleading; that the present 







Tur DoctrRInE oF ADOPTION. 517 


‘salvation contended for is an actual salvation from the 
guilt and power of sin, and from the eternal conse- 
quences of sin. Only, this state of salvation may or may 
not be temporary. It depends upon the believer’s will, 
whether, with the help of grace, he will continue in it, 
or whether, yielding to temptation, he will lapse frora 
it — possibly into final apostasy. 

In the first place, guilt, at the very least, that is, 
according to a definition wkich is admitted by all evan- 
gelical parties, is liability to eternal punishment. IE 
the believer is at present saved from this liability, he is, 
ex necessitate rei, saved from eternal punishment; for, 
if he ever incur that punishment, he was never saved 
from liability to it. The concession, therefore, that the 
Spirit bears witness to the believer’s present salvation 
from guilt, is a concession that the Spirit testifies to his 
salvation from eternal punishment. 

In the second place, the statement of present salvation 
from the reigning power of sin is scriptural; but it is 
unscriptural to say that the believer enjoys a present, 
entire salvation from all the power of sin— in other 
words, that he is conscious of entire sanctification. But 
even if it were granted that this is possible, if this 
present salvation from the power of sin may be suc- 
ceeded by the possessor’s final destruction by that power, 
it would be a lost salvation from the power of sin, and 
how that could be considered salvation from it, it is 
impossible to see. Equally impossible is it to perceive 
how, upon this hypothesis, the Spirit bears witness to 
any real salvation. - 

In the third place, a present salvation of the believer 


518 Discussions or THEOLOGICAL QuESTIONsS. 


from the eternal consequences of sin is incomprehensible 
— is indeed a contradiction in terms — if by the same 
man those consequences may be eternally felt. This is 
too evident to need argument. How can one be saved 
from the eternal results of sin, who will actually expe- 
rience them? And how can the Spirit bear witness to 
such a salvation ? 

To this it will be replied that the salvation is complete 
so far as God’s agency is concerned, but the eternal con- 
sequences of sin may be reincurred by our own agency. 
This is the hinge of the Arminian’s position. The re 
joinder is obvious. Our own agency is the chief source 
of the danger of eternal damnation to which we are 
exposed. It is a mine of peril in our very foundations. 
The devil can tempt us, and powerfully tempt us, to sin; 
but he cannot make us sin. He is the tempter to sin, 
not the creator of it. Were he removed from all connee- 
tion with men, they would still sin. That will be proved 
to the conviction of the world, and the satisfaction of 
the universe, by the millennial exposition of its malig- 
nity. Unless, then, we are not saved from our own 
sinful agency, we are not saved at all. To say that we 
may throw away a God-given, present deliverance from 
hell, and wilfully plunge into it at last, is to say that we 
are not really delivered from the wrath to come. We 
need to be saved from ourselves, as well as from the 
devil and the world. Any other salvation is no salvation. 
Jesus saves his people “from their sins.” 

To one who has had a so-called present salvation, and 
is finally lost, the present salvation was only a reprieve, 
a mere respite, a postponement of the day of doom. It 


a 





in i ee i 


Tuer Docrrine or ADOPTION. 519 


would be a new use of terms to say that a man whose 
sentence to be hanged was respited only, was saved froza 
hanging, or that one who was acquitted of murder, and 
committed another, and was hanged at last, was forever 
saved from hanging. To talk of his having once had a 
present salvation from hanging, and, therefore, that he 
was saved from future hanging is but to trifle. But 
enough upon this point. If the Spirit of God bears 
witness to a present salvation, he, ipso facto, testifies to 
an eternal salvation. 

The reviewer also concedes that the Spirit bears wit- 
ness to the believer’s adoption. Now, what is adoption 
if it be not a confirmation of sonship, begun in regenerd- 
tion? If, therefore, the Spirit bears witness to the 
believer’s adoption, he witnesses to his confirmed son- 
ship. Adam revolted against the kindly, paternal rule 
of God, and was saved only by the mercy of God in a 
Redeemer. But Adam, when he fell, was not an adopted 
son of God. Had-he been, he could never have fallen. 
God loses none of his adopted children. He never saw 
the funeral of one of them, and will never see such a 
funeral. He promises to them his fatherly favor for- 
ever. Either he cannot fulfil that promise, or he can 
and will not. If he cannot, he is not almighty; if he 
ean and will not, he is untrue. Either supposition is 
blasphemous. The fact that he makes such a promise 
will be denied. The contest is really between two radi- 
eally different theologies. It boots little to maintain, 
that the witness to adoption is a witness to final salva- 
tion, against those who affirm that justification and 
adoption are alike amissible benefits; who hold that one 


520 Discussions oF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 


who is adopted may be disinherited, and one who is 
justified may be damned. 

Another concession made by the reviewer is that the 
believer may, and ought to, possess the assurance of 
hope, as terminating on final salvation; and, if he is not 
misunderstood, he held that this assurance of hope is 
involved in the direct witness of the Spirit. No matter 
whether he maintained that this hope is divinely engen- 
dered, or humanly originated, he admitted that it is an 
assured hope, a hope assured by the infallible testimony 
of God’s Spirit. Now the Apostle Paul says of such a 
hope that it “maketh not ashamed.” It will never be 
disappointed. He who is blessed with this assured hope 
of final salvation on earth will be blessed with its 
fruition in heaven. The concession, therefore, that the 
Spirit confers this assurance of hope is a concession that 
the Spirit bears witness to and with the believer’s spirit 
that he will be finally saved. 

‘There are two of the reviewer’s positions which must 
be briefly animadverted upon before these remarks are 
closed. 

One is, that, according to the Calvinistie doctrine, 
when the Spirit bears witness to the believer’s perse- 
verance to final salvation, he assures him of his con- 
tinuance in the discharge of particular duties, and the 
avoidance of particular sins. The reviewer answers 
himself in thus misstating the Calvinistic view. For he 
elaborately argues to show that the Calvinist’s admis- 
sion of the lapses of the believer into temporary sin is 
inconsistent with his doctrine of assurance. How, in the 
name of reason, could the reviewer hold that the Cal- 


Tue DoctrinE oF ADOPTION. 521 


vinist contends for the possibility and the impossibility 
of a believer’s falls into sin? 

The other position is, that when a believer falls into 
sin he falls from a “state of grace.” This needs to be 
answered by simply asking a question. Did the pious 
reviewer lapse from a “state of grace” every time that 
he misrepresented the views of his Calvinistic brethren ? 
If so, he must have had a series of lapses from the “stats 
of grace,” in which he faithfully “persevered unto the 
end.” His Calvinistic brethren, however, believe that 
their able opponent continued in a “state of grace” when 
he did some graceless things, finished his course in 
triumph and entered into everlasting rest. He was 
very confident that David, Solomon and Peter fell from 
the state of grace; and he might have added to the 
enumeration Noah, Abraham and Moses, Barnabas, 
Paul, and all the other apostles who forsook their Master 
and fled, when the crisis of his work and the approaching 
climax of his passion most imperatively challenged fur 
him their sympathy and support. Every one of us, Cal- 
vinists and Arminians alike, not excepting the profes- 
sors of entire sanctification, would stand in need of the 
miracle of miracles of many successive new births and 
new creations (!), if every fall into special sin were a 
fall from the “state of grace.” 





INDEX. 


ADAM, capable of forming a 
system of natural theology, 
47. 
federal headship of, 112. 
represented by Christ, 405. 
relation to law and to disci- 
pline, 439. 
a son of God, 451. 
capable of being justified as 
subject and confirmed as 
son, objections to, 441. 
ADOPTION, cannot be classed 
under justification, 71. 
little controversy about, 428. 
chureh’s view of, 430. 
not treated exegetically, 430. 
not proper term to describe 


Adam’s possible reward, 
445. 

transfers from the family of 
Satan, 469. 


as element in scheme of re- 
demption, 473. 

nature and office of, 473. 

not to be confounded with re- 
generation, 473. 

virtual, 478. 

not to be confounded with 
justification, 479. 

not second element in justifi- 
cation, 484. 

the grounds of, 487. 

rights involved in, 489. 

special rights pertaining to, 
492. 

privileges of, 493. 

duties springing from, 494. 

evidences of, 495. 

witness of our own spirit to, 
495. 

witness of the Holy Spirit to. 
499. 


ADOPTION— 
gives assurance of final sal- 
vation, 511. 


ALBIGENSES, persecuted by 
Rome, 238. 

ALEXANDER, the he-goat of 
Daniel, 256. 

ANALOGY, God’s nature and 
ours, 8. 

ANGELS, elect, probably in- 
cluded in headship of 
Christ, 64. 

ANTICHRIST, Pope of Rome is, 
229. 


different views of, 228. 
ANTIocHUS EPIPHANES, not lit- 
tle horn of he-goat, 255. 
APOSTLES, spoke in foreign lan- 
guages, 323. 
how this command of lan- 

guage, 379. 

APPREHENSION AND 
HENSION, difference 
meaning, 118. 

APOCALYPSE, canonical, 251. 

ARIUS, majority of church fol- 
lowed, 200. 

ARMAGEDDON, battle of, 231. 

ARMINIANISM, doctrines of con- 
trasted with those of Cal- 
vinism, 52. 

ASCETICISM, developed by mys- 
ticism, 135. 

ATHANASIUS, honor paid to. 
193. 

held that numbers did not 

determine truth, 200. 

ATHEISTS, views of, on source 
of theology, not considered, 
76 


COMPRE- 
in 


ATONEMENT, cannot be central 
principle of theology, 71. 


524 


AuvGuSTINE, held that infants 
should communicate, 188. 
denied supremacy of the 
pope, 189. 
pictures of the Trinity not 
allowed in time of, 191. 


condemns some _ traditions, 
197. 

AusTRIA, power of, crushed, 
269. 


AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURES, 385. 
Protestant view of, 385. 
confessions of Christendom 

on, 388. 


BABYLON, modern, 211. 

Bacon, his view of the self- 
sufficiency of God, 10. 

considered theology queen of 
sciences, 144. 

view of the importance of 
mediation of Son, 458. 

BALAAM, subject of inspiration, 
285. 

Baptism, immersion, 194. 

BaRCLAY, a modern mystic, 134. 

asserts that Quakers do not 
contradict Scriptures, 148. 

that they add no new truth, 
151. 

BARONIUS, says tithe of univer- 
sal bishop was granted by 
Phocas, 263. 

BELIEVER IN CHRIST, both sub- 
ject and son, 450. 

does not fall from state of 
grace, 521. 

BELLARMINE, Catholic doctrine 
need not be believed until 
defined, 190. 

his distinctions in reference 
to traditions, 198. 

contends that state is sub- 
ject to church, 239. 

BERENGARIUS, condemned by 
Lateran Council, 190. 

BIBLE, how formed, 18. 

must be studied in relation 
to all of its parts, 24. 


INDEX. : 


BIBLE— 
cannot be taught without 
system, 25. 
asserts its own inspiration, 
275. 
not codrdinate with other 
professed sacred books, 
276. 
books of, quoted by Jesus as 
inspired, 345. 
addressed to all men, 386. 
Biretu, natural, designates 
those under covenant of 
works; second, those under 
covenant of grace, 406. 
BorHME, a mystic, 134. 
Bonrrace, the III., accepts 
grant of supreme episcopal 
power, 260. 
the IV., interferes in British 
affairs, 262. 
secured Pantheon, 262. 
introduced idolatry, 262. 
Bonvier, shows brevity in a 
statute to be advantageous, 
179. 
Bossuet, identifies Babylon 
with heathen Rome, 242. 
BRECKINRIDGE, Dr. ROBERT, his 
division of theology, 48. 
teachings of Scripture syste- 
matie, 50. 
Briccs, CHARLES AUGUSTUS, his 
view of inspiration, 277. 
Buppua, followers of, have de- 
fective knowledge of God, 
101. 


CAIAPHAS, subject of inspira- 
tion, 285. 

CoLLYRIDIANS, condemned as 
heretics for offering in- 
cense and tapers to saints, 
191. 

Catovin, held that person of 


Son became incarnate, 
419. 

CaLyin, quoted on tradition, 
170. 





i 


CALVIN— 
shows respect of the fathers 
for Scripture, 178. 
on relations of inspiration, 
290. 
his view that God is Father 
because of Christ, 458: 

CANDLISH, discussed Father- 

hood of God, 429. 
answered by Crawford, 429. 
answered on _ sonship of 

Adam, 453. 
limits sonship to adoption, 

460. 

‘admits that Adam was po- 
tentially a son of God, 466. 

CANON OF SCRIPTURES, on what 
ground settled by early 
church, 353. 

Cavour, Count, 
268. 

CHayneE, his view of inspira- 
tion, 277. 

CHEMNITZ, quoted on tradition, 
194, 

CHILLINGWORTH, shows use 
made of tradition by the 
fathers, 176. 

on tradition, 187, 190. 
recounts traditions not ob- 

served by Rome, 194. 
quotes Augustine against 

tradition, 197. 

CuRIsT, his priestly office sys- 
tematically taught in He- 
brews, 26. 

person of, divine, 393. 
divine personality could re- 

ceive no addition, 395. 
had two _ consciousnesses, 

wills and natures, 396. 
did not descend from Adam 

by ordinary generation, 

406. 
person of could not suffer, 

408. 
divine personality absorbed 

human, considered, 411. 
divine personality dominated 

human, considered, 412. 


statesman, 


INDEX. 








525 


CuristT— 

views of Spanish Scotists 
and others on personality 
of, 413. 

chureh’s doctrine of person- 
ality of, how vindicated, 
416. 

was both subject and son, 
435. 

was under both law and dis- 
cipline at the same time, 
439. 

supplied defects of Adam’s 
obedience as servant and 
son, 481. 

obedience as Son absorbed 
that of subject, considered, 
482. 

CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION, di- 
vided into two parts, 250. 

CHRISTIANITY, the only true re- 
ligion, 7. 

alone teaches Trinity, 11. 

alone gives correct view of 
God's physical government, 
12. 

gives correct view of moral 
government, 12. 

gives account of origin of sin, 
12. 

affirms unity- of race, 13.- 

teaches resurrection of body, 
13. 

has introduced no new origi- 
nal principle in moral gov- 
ernment, 121. 

makes new application of old 
principles, 121. 

CuHuRCH, her doctrine of person 
of Christ exists from the 
Council of Constantinople, 
403. 

of ingland, claims right to 
decree ceremonies not con- 
trary to Scriptures, 148. 

of Rome, the woman of the 
Apocalypse, 234. 

CiczRo, a deist, 101. 

CLoIstTEeR, does not subdue sin, 
142. 


526 INDEX. 


Common CONSENT, does not 
sustain Rome’s doctrine of 
tradition, 198. 

COMPREHENSION AND APFRE- 
HENSION, difference in 
meaning, 118. 

CONFESSIONS OF CHRISTENDOM, 
quoted to show the au- 
thority of the Scriptures, 
388. 

ConFrucius, his followers have 
defective conceptions of 
God, 101. 

CoNSCcICUSNESS of perceiving 
act does not imply con- 
sciousness of thing per- 
ceived, 33. 

CONSTANTINE, granted Peter’s 
patrimony, 263. 

CoRRUPTIONS, produced by 
Rome’s doctrines, 205. 

CounciL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 
fixed doctrine of person of 
Christ, 403. 

CRAWFORD, answered Candlish 
and Wright on Fatherhood 
of God, 429. 

CrEEDS, how formed, 51. 

CRETANS, revolted, 269. 

CROMWELL, prevents persecu- 
tion of Vaudois, 238. 

CUNNINGHAM, PRINCIPAL, cited 
to show views of the 
fathers on tradition, 175. 

his view of Romish develop- 
ment rejected, 202. 

CYPRIAN, says bishops were 

equal, 215. 


Dasney, Dr., his division of 
theology, 45. 

DanieL, his wilful king the last 
expression of Antichrist, 
229. 

supplementary periods of, 270. 

Date of rise of papacy, 253. 

other suggested dates, 267. 

DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY, 1, 13, 

16; 02. 


DEFINITION OF THEOLOGY— 
objections to, considered, 21. 
objection, that the infinite is 
indefinable, 26. ‘ 
objection, that it makes the- 

ology independent of the 
Bible, 40. 
broad and narrow, 40. 

DEIsM, statement of, 96. 
answer to, 99. 

Deists, English, question mis- 

stated in controversy with, 
97. . 

Dre Matstre, his view of de- 
velopment, 202, 204. 

DESTINY OF THE PAPACY, 246. 
treated as to fact and as to 

time, 246. 

DEUTSCHMANN, held that the 
person of the Son became 
incarnate, 419. 

DEVELOPMENT, Protestant doc- 
trine of, 201. 

mystic view of, 202. 
Romish view of, 203. 

Dionysius, endeavored to in- 
corporate Neo-Platonism 
into Christian system, 133. 

DISCIPLINARY AND RETRIBUTIVE 
GOVERNMENT considered, as 
to their ends, 443. 

as to their penalties, 444. 

DIVISION oF THEOLOGY, 59. 
vindication of, 60. 

Doctrines not originally held 
by Church of Rome, 191. 

DoceMatists, their position, 
124, 

DotiinceER, held to infallibility 
of councils, 208. 

Dorner, cited on person of 
Christ, 401, 413, 419. 
Driver, his views on inspira- 

tion, 277, 357. 

DvuRATION OF PAPACY, 253. 


Ecnart, a mystic, 133. 
ERIGENA, JOHN SCOTUS, a mys- 
tic, 133. 


INDEX. 


ERkz0r, associated with truth, 
152. 

EUPHRATES, symbolizes Moham- 
medanism, 248. 


Evans, THoMAS, a Quaker, 
126. 

EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF 
REVELATION, overthrown 


by verbal inspiration, 360. 


FABER, GEORGE STANLEY, quoted 
in fayor of year-day theory, 
252. 

makes ram to be Medo-Per- 
sian Empire, 255. 
answers Dr. Zouch, 257. 

Fairu, an element of reason, 

8. 

grounds our knowledge of the 
intinite perfections of God, 
28 


co-ordinate 


with thought, 
119. 
difference between natural 


and spiritual, 119. 

not coérdinate with Scrip- 
tures in furnishing rule of 
duty, 147. 

FaiTH-JUDGMENTS, begin with 
experience, 34. 

FATHER, may also be magis- 
trate, 435. 

may punish son, 436. 

FATHERHOOD oF Gob, discus- 
sions of, 429. 

Fatuers, the early, appealed to 
in support of tradition, 
174. 

FEDERAL HEADSHIP oF ADAM, 
proved, 112. 

FEDERAL REPRESENTATION, reg- 
ulative in theology, 71. 
FENELON, ARCHBISHOP, a mys- 

tic, 134. 

Fox, a mystic, 134. 

Frienps. Society or, believe in 
inspiration, 126. 
FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS, 

known, 32. 


how 





527 


GALLICAN THEORY oF INFALLI- 
BILITy, 207. 

GERMAN LUTHERAN CHURCH, on 
authority of the Scerip- 
tures, 388. 

GERMANY, conflict between mys- 
ticism and _ rationalism, 
144. 

Gop, his attributes not known 
through thinking faculty, 
29. 

sense in which he cannot be 
subject of logical classifi- 
cation, 37. 

physical government of, be- 
longs to theology, 56. 

cannot act inconsistently 
with himself, 373. 

can verbally inspire men, 375. 

GopuEaD, diversity in, sug- 
gested by reason, 10. 

GoobE, cited to show that the 
fathers held the sufficiency 
of Scriptures, 176. 

GOSPEL, a new religion, 124. 

GREEK PHILOSOPHY, knew no- 
thing of doctrines peculiar 
to revelation, 116. 

GREGORY, THE GREAT, calls any 
professing to be universal 
bishop forerunner of Anti- 
christ, 216. 

condemned idol worship, 262. 

GREGORY, NAZIANZEN, on honor 
paid Athenasius, 193. 

GUALTERIUS, held that the 
fathers taught authority 
of tradition, 188. 

Guyon, Mapam, a mystic, 134. 


HALLER, considers theology 
queen of sciences, 144. 
HERBERT, Lorp, his creed, 100. 

HERETICAL Popss, 218. 
HERON, abandoned his cell, 142. 
HIcHER Critics, their view of 
inspiration, 277. 
acknowledge inspiration of 
parts of Bible, 301. 


528 


HicHER Critics— 
inconsistent with themselves, 
304. 
logically charge Christ with 
want of veracity, 305. 
History, Rome cannot manu- 
facture, 238. 
Hoper, A. A., his distribution 
of theology, 52. 
shows tradition is not sus- 
tained by history, 186. 
views on adoption, 473. 
Hopcr, Cuarces, his definition 
of theology, 41. 
objects to making religion 
specific difference in defini- 
tion, 39. 
concedes that facts of natural 
theology are in Bible, 44. 
his distribution of theology, 
52. 
on tradition, 187. 
charges Rome with changing 
Scripture truths, 204. 


on nature of inspiration, 
279. 

on the relations of inspira- 
tion, 290. 


views on adoption, 473. 

Hoty GuHost, taught apostles 

* what to say, 306. 

Honortus I., condemned by 
sixth C2cumenical Council, 
217. 

Human AvTHORITY, not al- 
lowed in religious matters, 
172. 

Hume, relation of Christianity 
io paganism, 90. 

Hypostatic UNIoN, 397. 


INCARNATION, reveals God, 394. 
limitations involved in, 418. 
what it is, 419. 

InDULGENCES, not known in 

early church, 191. 

INFALLIBILITY, doctrine of pa- 

pal, predicted, 192. 
Romish doctrine of, 206. 


INDEX. ' 


INFALLIBILITY— 
Roman Pontiff declared to 
be, 207. 
Council held to be, 207. 
two views of, inconsistent, 
209. 
of council, opposed by Chil- 
lingworth, Thornwell, and 
Schaff, 210. 
arguments against, 211. 
supposes inspiration, 223. 
INFINITE, how apprehended, 28. 
sense in which it may be de- 
fined, 38. 
INSPIRATION, Quakers’ view of, 
150. 
supposes the miracle, 223. 
of the Scriptures, 273. 
reasons for considering, 274. 
Bible asserts its own, 275. 
chureh testifies to, 276. 
nature of, 279. 
proofs of, accepted by Jews 
and Christians, 280. 
proved by miracles, 280, 367. 
what it is, 281. 
definition of, 289. 
its relations, 289. 
its extent, 293. 
degrees of, 293. 
theories of, 293. 
mechanical theory of, 294. 
different degrees of, 295. 
spiritual insight, theory of, 
295. 
dynamic theory of, 295. 
refers to original manu- 
scripts, 301. 
scope of, 338. 
divine and human elements 
in, 364. 
objections to, answered, 371. 
different styles of expression 
consistent with, 376. 
INSPIRED MEN, not always un- 
der inspiration, 286. - 
IRENZ&tS, held doctrine of mil- 
lenaries, 188. 
identifies Babylon with 
Rome, 241. 


INDEX. 


IpyInaiTEs, spoke gibberish, 
76. 

INTUITION, sense in which used, 
84. 

INTUITIONALISM, answer to, 
86. 

INTULTIONALIST, his position, 
$4, 


JEROME, his monastic experi- 

ence, 142. 
says that all bishops were 
equal, 215. 

Jesus, taught inspiration of 
Jewish canon, 343. 

JEWS, reason incapable of con- 
vincing them of super- 
natural doctrines, 117. 

will return to their own 
land, 271. 

JOHN XXII., Pope, denied that 

souls enjoy vision of God, 


190. 
JONAS, a type of Christ, 118. 
JUSTIFICATION, systematically 


taught in Scriptures, 25. 
as central principle of the- 
ology, considered, 65. 
importance of, 66. 
virtual, 478. 
how different from sanctifica- 
tion, 485. 
Justin Martyr, held doctrine 
of millenaries, 188. 
JUSTINIAN, conferred upon 
Bishop of Rome headship 
of all churches, 254. 


KANT, on development, 201. 
on personality, 426. 


LATERAN COUNCIL, condemned 
erengarius, 190. 
Law, physical infraction of, 
brings punishment, 104. 
human, inflicts punishment, 
194, 


529 


Law— 
all false 
on, 105. 
obedience to, impossible, 106. 
divine government cannot 
dispense with, 106. 
Lersnitz, his philosophy used 
by mystics, 124, 
considers theology queen of 
sciences, 144. 

Leo II., confirmed condemna- 
tion of Honorius, 218. 
Littte Horn or DANIEL, repre- 
sents the Roman Church, 

229. 

Lorb's SUPPER, expanded into 
transubstantiation, 204. 
LUKE, reports different speak- 

ers, each in his own style, 
381. 

LUTHERAN CHURCH, so called 
mystics spiritual element 
in, 145. 

LUTHERAN THEOLOGIANS, con- 
tend for a divine-human 
consciousness, 409. ~ 


religions founded 


MAN, never without a direct 
revelation, 11. 

MANSEL, his use of the term 
intuition, 85. 

MaRcELLusS, his description of 
papal vestments, 236. 

MARKS OF AN APOSTLE, 213. 

McCosu, use of intuition, 84. 

MEDIATOR, some things can be 
predicated of which cannot 
be of Son of God, 423. 

MEDIATORIAL .OFFICE, how ac 
cepted, 424. 

Mebo-Persian EMPIRE, symbol- 
ized by ram, 255. 

MEYER, quoted on Acts ii. 4, 
375. 

MILLENNIUM, Daniel’s wilful 
king before, 229. 

believed in, 250. 
one part of Christian dispen- 

sation, 250. 


530 INDEX. 


MiracLes, proof of inspiration, 
152, 367. 
defined, 224. 
of Rome, considered, 226. 
Mopiriep Rarionaxists, their 
position, 124. 

MoHAMMED, events relating to 
his early career, 205. 
‘MoHAMMEDANISM, defects of, 7. 

anti-Christian, 229. 
synchronous with Romanism, 
259. 
reason for discussing, 270. 
Mouter, his view of develop- 
ment, 202. 
Mo.inos, MicuarL, a mystic, 
134. 
MonorHeLite HERESY, authors 
anathematized, 217. 
MonTANUS, position of, 133. 
Morat GOVERNMENT, consistent 
with moral -discipline, 433. 
difference in cases of sinner 
and innocent, 434. 
generic, 438. 
MorELL, was semi-pantheistic, 
86. 
his view of justification, 277. 
referred to by Thornwell, 
322. 
his objection to inspiration 


of Scriptures considered, 
371. 

Moruer or Hartors, Rome is, 
234. 


Mystics, are rationalists, 15. 
their view as to source of 
theology, 73. 
deny completeness of revela- 


tion, 125. : 

classified with Romanist, 
126. 

concede inspiration of Scrip- 
tures, 127. 


elasses of, 133. 
arguments against, 135. 
religions, 143. 
Mysticism, position of, 147. 
Mystery, written on front of 
anti-Christian power, 252. 


NATURE AND Person, different, 
416. 

NATURAL RELIGION, meaning of 
term, 57. 

NaTurAL THEOLOGY, included 
in biblical theology, 43. 

ways in which it may be re- 

vealed, 46. 

NEANDER, quoted, 142. 

NESTORIAN THEORY of person of 
Christ, 398. 

NewMan, his theory of historic 
development, 149, 202. 
New TESTAMENT writers quote 
from Old Testament by in- 

spiration, 383. 


‘Newton, Str Isaac, considers 


little horn of Greek beast 
to symbolize Rome, 257. 
Nice, second Council of, de- 
clares Roman bishop to be 
universal bishop, 267. 
Nitus, the saint, 143. 
NOMINAL CHRISTIANS, not 
agreed on source or object- 
matter of theology, 14. 


ORAL TEACHINGS OF APOSTLES, 
authority of, 168, 174. 
OrTHODOX, called mystics by 
their opponents, 143. 


Pacan Rome, enemy of church, 
231. 
PAGANISM, defects of, 7. 
PANTHEIST, rejects personality 
of God, 76. 
arguments against, 76. 
PANTHEON, changed into a 
ehurch, 262. 
Papacy, destiny of, 246. 
time of destruction of, 249. 
duration of, 253. 
when begun, 253. 
synchronizes with Mohamme- 
danism, 259. 
PARACELSUS, a mystic, 134. 
Paut, his designations of papal 
Rome, 231. 


INDEX. 


PENN, 2 Quaker, 134. 

PERRONE, quoted on inspiration, 
127. 

views on tradition, 160. 

PERSECUTIONS, by Rome, 238. 

Person, of Christ, how doc- 
trine was formulated, 51. 

discussed, 393. 

false notions of lead to ra- 
tionalism, 404. 

of Son of God, became incar- 
nate, 419. 

PreRsSonaLItTy, what it is, 419. 

what elements must be ex- 
cluded, 420. 

what embraced, 424. 

definition of, 427. 

PETER, promience of, expanded 
into supremacy of pope, 
204. 

Perrzus a Soro, quoted on tra- 
dition, 194. 

PHILOSOPHY, measures power 
of reason, 116. 

Puocas, decreed boniface uni- 
versal bishop, 263. 

PIeTISM, a form of mysticism, 
134. 

Prius IX., deified, 215. 

changed his views, 219. 

Pore, the, his claims not sus- 

tained by miracles, 226. 

his interpretation of Scrip- 
ture and tradition final, 
228. 

is Antichrist, 229. 

made head of church by im- 
perial decree, 230. 

Post-MILLENNIALISM, accepted, 
250. 

Prayer, kneeling prohibited at 
certain times, 194. 

Prizsts oF RoME, rejoiced at 
martyrdom of Protestants, 
239. 

PROTESTANTS, all 
Scriptures as 
theology, 17. 

views of some, as to common 
consent, 199. 


appeal to 
source of 


531 


| ProTESTANTS— 


orthodox position of, on 
source of theology, 273. 
Pseupo-Dionysius, his view of 
how .we arrive at know- 
ledge of God, 28. ° 


QUAKERS, mystics, 134. 
living sect, 147. 
their position, 148. 
have no acknowledged stand- 
ard, 148. 
truth revealed directly, 148. 
their views answered, 151. 
Quick, his testimony as to per- 
. secutions of Huguenots, 
238. 
QuIeTIsM, a form of mysticism, 
134. 


RaTIONALISM, technical, posi- 
tion occupied, 108. 
influence of, in Germany, 
144. 
RATIGNALISTS, views, of, on 
source of theology, 75. 
classes divided into, 75. 
technical, how divided, 108. 
REASON, could not have antici- 
pated redemption, 116. 
office of, in examining reve- 
lation, 114. 
REGENERATION, makes us chil- 
dren of God, 431. 
its efiects, 481. 
initial act in sanctification. 
435. 
RELIGION, a science, 1. 
its relation to reason, 6. 
the specific difference in defi- 
nition of theology, 39. 

of grace, meaning of, 58. 

the central principal of the- 
ology, 68. 

REVELATION, necessity of, 99. 
used in two relations, 292. 
does not precede inspiration, 

293. 


532 INDEX. 


RIGHT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT, 
153. 
RoME, extent of her persecu- 
tions, 238. 
never changes principles, 240. 
is the Babylon of the Apoca- 
lypse, 240. 
to be destroyed by the ten 
kingdoms, 244. 
makes tradition necessary to 
determine canon of Scrip- 
ture, 166. 
makes Scripture prove tradi- 
tion, 167. 
doctrines of, not held by 
early church, 187. 
church of, not part of true 
ehurch, 199. 
place in prophecy, 228. 
anti-Christian, 229. 
how she makes kings commit 
fornication with her, 235. 
pontiif of, declared to be in- 
fallible, 207. 
RoMANIST, view of source of 
theology, 74. 
a rationalist, 16. 
denies completeness of reve- 
lation, 125. 
classified with mystics, 125. 
admits inspiration of Serip- 
tures, 127. 
denies sufficiency of Scrip- 
tures, 157. 
claims of, 158. 
reasons in a circle, 193. 
RusuwortTH, his dialogues, 190. 
Ruysprock, a mystic, 133. 


Saints, worship of, considered 
heretical by early church, 
191. 

delivered to papacy, 230. 

Scuarr, disproved doctrine of 


infallibility of councils, 
210. 

ScHLEIERMACHER, semi-panthe- 
ist, 86. 


theology of feelings, 147. 
on person of Christ, 404. 


SCHWENKFELD, a mystic, 134, 
Science, what constitutes a, 3. 
defined from object-matter, 
48. 
Scripture, republishes naturat 
truth, 23. 
contains matter beyond nat- 
urai religion, 115. 
completeness of, proved, 1256. 
canon of, how formed, 167. 
errors in, considered, 383. 
parts of, consist of logical 
arguments, 328. 
the style that of original 
writers, 381]. 
peculiarities in style of, 
necessary to determine au- 
thorship, 382. 
our knowledge of, capable of 
development, 428. 
SEcuLAR ARM, subject to 
church, 239. 
SEDAN, power of France weak- 
ened at, 269. 
SETH, Proressor, article in Hn- 
cyclopedia Britannica, 147. 
SHEDD, his view of generic hu- 
man nature, 405. = 
Stn, has deranged the thinking 
faculty, 223. 
Socrates, a deist, 101. 
Son or Gop, freely undertook 
mediatorial office, 423. 
how man ceased to be a, 432. 
how nian remained a, 472. 
SonsnHiy, distinetion between 
natural and spiritual, 431. 
Source or THEOLOGY, different 
views of, 14. 
what jis it? 73. 
parties answering, 73. 
Spirit, Hoty, supernaturaliy 
illuminates, 153. 
testimony to adoption, 505. 
SPANISH Scorists, on person of 
Christ, 413. 

STEPHEN, Bishop of Rome, on 
heretical baptisms, 188. 
STYLE, peculiarities of, neces- 
sary to settle question of 

authorship, 382. 


INDEX. 


STYLITEs, rebuked, 143. 

SUAREZ, on _ personality 
Christ, 413. 

Summers, Dr. TuHos., his views 
on the assurance of adop- 
tion, 511. 

SUPERNATURAL RELIGION, mean- 
ing of, 58. 

SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, 
docirines of, not revealed 
in nature, 116. 

SUPREME AUTHORITY, latest ex- 
pression is superior, 122. 

Suso, a mystic, 133. 

Synops or Dort anpD WEsT- 
MINSTER on testimony of 
Spirit to adoption, 506. 


ot 


TABLE, showing objective and 
subjective relations to God, 
486. 

TANLER, a mystic, 133. 

TEMPORAL PowER oF Pops, 
231. 

Ten KiNnepoms, represented by 
horns, 244. 

TERTULLIAN, a mystic, 133. 

commented on by Chilling- 
worth, 194. 

quoted on vyeiling 
195. 

makes Babylon symbolize Ro- 
man city, 242. 

THEOLOGY, a science, 1. 

definition of, 13, 16, 17. 

not merely speculative, 19. 

useless without saving work 
of the Spirit, 20. 

objections to the definition, 
21, 23. 

why no logical system in 
Scriptures, 22. 

methods of distribution, 45. 

distinction between natural 
and revealed useless, 45. 

principle of unity important, 
70. 


women, 


queen of sciences, 144. 
THOMISTS, views on person of 
Christ, 413. 





533 


THORNWELL, description of the- 
ology, 19. 
commends Catechism’s defini- 
tion of God, 38. 
definition of natural 
ology, 45. 
his distribution of theology, 
o4. 
makes justification central 
principle of theology, 65. 
opposed doctrine of infalli- 
bility of councils, 210. 
on relations of inspiration, 
290. 
on verbal inspiration, 322. 
discussed Fatherhood of God, 
429. 
on difference between servant 
and son, 441. 
answered on 
Adam, 453. 
THOUGHT, a codrdinate element 
with faith in reason, 119. 
THOUGHT - KNOWLEDGE, incapa- 
ble of comprehending soul, 
life and essence, 27. 
TORQUEMADA, presided over 
courts that condemned 
Protestants, 239. 


the- 


sonship of 


TRADITION, Romanist view of, 
158. : 
arguments for, 162. 
differences between, and 


Seripture, 173. 
compared to unwritten civil 
law, 178. 
claims to be supported by 
historic testimony, 185. 
the source of all Rome’s cor- 
ruptions, 193. 
TRANSLATIONS, how 
368. 
TRANSUBSTANTIATION, not al- 
ways a doctrine of Rome, 
190. 
TRENCH, on how translations 
are inspired, 369. 
TRENT, Council of, quoted, 158. 
holds tradition worthy of 
equal veneration with 
Seriptures, 195. 


inspired, 


534 


Trinity, the, justified by rea- 
son, 9. 4 
how doctrine of, was formu- 
lated, 51. 
pictures of, adored in the 
churches, 191. 
TurKeEY, bankrupt, 270. 
Two-Hornep BEAST; meaning 
of symbol, 230. 


ULTRAMONTAIN THEORY OF IN- 
FALLIPILITY, 207. 

UNION WITH Gop, principle of 
unity under religion, 69. 

UNIVERSAL BisHop, evidence 
that Boniface was declared 
to be, 263. 


_ VASQUEZ, on person of Christ, 
414. 
VaTICAN, police may inspect, 
269. 
council decreed infallibility, 
219. 
VERBAL INSPIRATION, proofs of, 
307. 
of Old Testament, 307. 
prophets claimed, 310. 
of New Testament, 315. 
doctrine held by primitive 
chureh, 320. 
transcendental truths could 
only be revealed by, 332. 
overthrows evolutionary the- 
ory of revelation, 360. 


INDEX. 


rb 


Victor EMMANUEL, worked for 
unification of Italy, 268. 

VircIn Mary, immaculate con- 
ception of, opposed by 
Catholie writers, 192. 

VuLGATE, quoted, 128. 


WALDENSES, 
Rome, 238. 

WALTON, treatise on evidence 
of adoption reviewed by 
Dr. Summers, 511. 

Watson, THOS., statement of 
the grounds of assurance 
in adoption, 497. 

WEIGAL, a mystic, 134. 

Witt, nature of Christ’s, 418. 

Wirtstus, on adoption, 461. 

Women, no law for veiling, 195. 

Woops, Leonarp, quoted, 144. 

WorpswortH, a high church- 
man, 241. 

Wricut, discussed Fatherhood 
of God, 429. 


persecuted by 


XIMENES, presided over courts 
that condemned Protes- 
tants, 239. 


YeEar-Day, theory of, 251. 


Zoucn, identifies little horn of 
beast with Rome, 257. 








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